Idée Fixe
by AnyaClover
Summary: Hans Landa believed that intelligence, grit, and deception were the constitution of somebody worth his time. When Audrey Loewe stood, bloody-mouthed in front of him, he had been lit alive with the thrill of someone worth hunting.
1. Chapter 1

_Trigger warning: Violence/Allusion to Sexual Violence_

Audrey Loewe intensely watched the clock in the kitchen, eyes trained on the black ticking hand, the barely perceptible movement of the thicker lines.

4.50 am

She let her eyes close only for a moment, hands resting in her lap as she sat at the oak table.

5 am wasn't safe. The clock could be wrong. Knocked back in time by an imperceptible force. She may still end up laying footsteps during curfew, leaving herself vulnerable to unwanted attention.

No no, better to wait until 5.05 am.

Certainly safe at 5.05 am.

Audrey Loewe could be described by a few words. Those words had been thrown around by her godmother and her godmother's son during last night's dinner.

Marion's choice words had been 'kind, careful, considered, hurt'.

Arthur's had been 'calculating, cold, self-preserving, righteous'.

As all arguments begin it had seemed benign. The apartment currently held four other young adults, 2 women and 2 men, who were sleeping on the floor of Arthur's room. During dinner, the four had been speaking in low tones in the living room, and Audrey had simply looked agitated at her stew.

That had commenced the argument, to which Audrey had contributed only five words: "You know how I feel."

Marion treated the orphaned Audrey as her own, and Audrey knew the argument wasn't really about the young people in the other room. It was about Arthur's jealousy and his frustration with Audrey.

Why wasn't she more militant? Why didn't she support the cause in more proactive ways? Why didn't she care?

Marion had fired back that Audrey 'did care', and that she had 'been through enough' and that she was 'always welcome under this roof'.

Audrey also knew the argument had come from fear.

Marion was a widow with a rounded body, ageing face, and kind, maternal heart and hands.

But her mind was failing.

It began as a dribble. Silly mistakes, slipping thoughts. Words that didn't fit in place. Memories misplaced, others overlapping.

Audrey had noticed it first during her typical weekend visit two months prior. Forgetting to put potatoes in the stew. Marion had laughed at it, but there was fear in her gaze. Fear that she should have remembered, should have known.

Then last night she had called Audrey by her dead mother's name. 'Anna, please get your plate.'. There had been a frozen silence, and Arthur had then laughed it all away, shaking his head as though they were all sharing the joke.

Audrey had not.

They'd argued once Marion retired to bed, Audrey hissing at him in the recesses of the living room. That it was a worry, that they needed to do something. Arthur had snapped back that it was fine. Audrey worried too much.

Audrey had argued that it was Marion's home and it wasn't safe to be discussing anything within those walls. Especially not resistance. Especially not rebellion. They couldn't put this kind, older woman at risk like that. It wasn't fair on her.

"Your parents died for this," Arthur had whispered, eyes ablaze and indignant. "You think they died for nothing?"

Audrey had slapped him so hard her palm had stung.

Arthur had gone to bed and she had sat in silence in the kitchen, mind unable to rest.

So, in the cool recesses of Sunday morning silence, she delicately laid out her day. She would attend mass at Notre Dame, collect her rations, and return to her shoebox room in the 18th arrondissement. She'd have a nap, collect herself, ready herself for another week of exhaustion. Everything was exhausting under the German occupation. Every breath, every blink, every thought was being collected or controlled. She yearned for freedom, but it had been four long years since she had felt freedom. Sometimes she considered she may never feel it again. At twenty-two years old she felt both the oldest woman she had ever met and the youngest. Her face was still that of a teenager, her tiny and diminutive form having her often mistaken at a distance for a teenager. It was the unmistakable iron of her eyes that let people know she was beyond those years. Eyes that had seen.

Her eyes open once more, and she looked up, her eyes focused on the clock once more.

5.05 am.

She swiftly picked up her handbag, coat already on her form as she silently slipped out the front door, making sure to keep her footsteps silent on the stairs. It was funny the ways the body could learn to move under the constant gaze. It could learn ways of moving that seemed impossible. Silent steps, moving only in shadows. Working in ways to be undetectable.

She was sure she'd be more shadow than a woman by the end of this occupation. She stepped silently onto the street, slipping through a crack in the front door of the fashionable building. Eyes downcast, heart once again hardening to survive yet another day under occupation.

"Fräulein!"

Audrey's stomach sunk at the language she had heard, her eyes cast up to see them in their pristine uniform. Not just one. Dozens. All in varying regalia, all smiling with easy cruelty which burned her skin. The one who had spoken to her stood in his SS uniform, a cigarette hanging from his lips. They were all lit by the headlights of the cars behind them. Stood in easy silence in pre-dawn Paris.

"Hallo," she said calmly, allowing no emotion to reach her features.

She attempted to continue walking but he stepped into her way, a hand raised to stop her.

"Did you just exit apartment twelve?" He asked.

"Nein," she said with an easy naturalness. Expressionless.

He smirked lightly at her, flicking his cigarette onto the road below him.

His hand hit her her shoulder, thumb dug to her collarbone, as he thrust her into the wall behind her. She felt the breath rush from her body at the sting of the bricks burned into the back of her.

"You verdammt French," he chuckled darkly, his hand squeezing into her skin. "Why can't you just behave?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said as evenly, confusion lacing her words. Her eyes drifted to the side to see the Nazi's storm into the apartment building, thunderous footsteps followed by muffled screams and yells.

"We have a saying in Deutschland," he replied with a nasty smirk. "If it looks like a dog, barks like a dog, it's probably a bitch."

Two younger soldiers chuckled darkly behind him, sharing a thin cigarette between them.

"I am just visiting my godmother," she begun earnestly. "She is unwell. She needs help-"

"Shut up," he snapped. He begun to speak in sharp and quick German behind him, mobilising his soldiers with a wave of his free hand as the young people from Arthur's apartment began to be torn from the building, all screaming and yelling, cuffed and dragged by the uniformed men.

Arthur was one of the last, a fresh bloody lip smearing across his chin.

Audrey stared at him, eyes willingly unseeing. Glassy. A flicker of emotion would have her killed.

"Do you know him?" The blue-eyed officer asked. She shook her head, blinking up at the officer.

The slap that hit her mouth caused her to gasp, her head snapping as fresh blood slipped from the newly split corner of her mouth. Her hand came up to gently touch her new wound, timidly looking back up.

"Liar," the German said with a nasty smile. The young germans behind him sniggered.

"Do you know her?" He barked at Arthur. Arthur shook his head.

"Nein," Arthur said simply. The man smiled and released Audrey, smiling amiably as he unclipped his pistol.

"You are sure?" He asked. Arthur nodded, holding his blue-eyed gaze.

The shot was so quick that Audrey didn't have time to look away. Arthur's knees greet the ground as his body crumpled, his head crunching the ground as blood poured from between his eyes.

Audrey felt the bile crawl up, the closest thing she had in this world to a brother, bleeding in death on the sidewalk. She couldn't move her eyes from him, baring unbearable witness to this murder.

She only looked up when she heard Marion scream, two young soldiers pulling the grief-stricken mother away from her son.

Audrey body moved without her permission. She lunged forward towards Marion, only to be thrown back against the brickwork, the blue-eyed officer's hand vice-like to her neck.

"You don't know him," he said simply, a cruel amusement dancing in his expression.

Audrey's hand wrapped his wrists, scratching at clawing at it, trying to free herself.

He slapped her once more, snapping 'stop', causing her head to jerk violently, the sting burning on her eye.

To Audrey's surprise, she did not.

Instead, her hands reached forward, scratching blindly at his face. She felt the flesh lift beneath her nails, followed by a strangled roar by him. He let go of her and she seized her opportunity, scrambling from him as she rushed in the opposite direction of her dead friend.

The young soldier caught her by her hair, dragging her back with a swift tug. She tumbled, palms scraped across the asphalt. There was a cackle of laughter by the soldiers, followed by a swift kick to her side. Audrey gasped out, blood caking around her mouth as she curled into herself.

"She's pretty," she heard one of them say, a laugh rippling through the gang of three as the other uniformed men continued to drag her fellow Parisians into nearby cars and trucks.

"She's too skinny," one complained.

"Doesn't matter," said the third.

She felt her body be lifted once more by the root of her hair, her hands coming up to snatch at the wrist of the man holding her. She glanced up to see the young soldier open a nearby car door, before looking up to see the blue-eyed man looking at her with a distinct smile, a cold leer, and a burning gaze that turned her stomach to ice.

"Let go," she said sharply, eyes turning wild as he continued to drag her towards the car.

"Nein," he said. "Try to relax fräulein, it will make it easier-"

"Let go!" she shrieked, fighting desperately against the soldier's grasp. She felt one of the young soldiers come to roughly pull off her coat, tossing it across the road with a loud laugh. "Let go, let go!"

"You'd think cutting out a tongue would quiet up a woman," the blue-eyed man said with a harsh chortle. "This does a better job."

Audrey kicked against the car, her heel scratching the paint as she flung herself backwards. She looked up, eyes frenetic as she scrambled away, kicking and scratching and shouting. She was free but only for a heartbeat. The leader, his blue eyes amused wrapped his fingers to her dress, tugging her towards the car.

"Calm down," the blue-eyed man snapped, irritated that she would dare disobey. His hand coming to cover her mouth. She bit him, teeth sinking into flesh, drawing blood. He roared out in pain, dropping her. She hit the dark road with a thud, scrambling backwards and away. Stars filled her eyes as the cool night air seeped through her blue dress, ripped at the collar. She was so panicked, so blinded, that she ran into him at full force, falling backwards as his hands reached out to grab her arms.

She looked up to see yet another uniformed man, his hair neatly groomed, his leather coat shining against the streetlight.

She threw herself back, but his grip was too firm.

"Standartenführer Landa, do not unhand her!" The blue-eyed man shouted, rushing forward, the two young soldiers rushing behind him.

"Jésus Christ," she cursed, eyes wild as she struggled against the new man. He looked at her with equal parts disinterest and bemusement.

"What has happened to her Sturmbannführer Hellstrom?" Landa called, taking in her bleeding lip and swollen eye.

"You know how these French can be," Hellstrom called back genially, his blue eyes sparkling as he smiled at his superior officer. "A bit of fight in them."

"Fight? What is she?" Landa asked in amusement. "Five foot one, eighty pounds?"

"She has fight in her sir," Dieter responded, flashing his bleeding palm at his fellow officer, before wrapping it in a handkerchief.

"Is this true?" Landa asked in French. She looked between Hellstrom to Landa, suspiciously taking him in, his hands softly gripping her forearms.

"_Don't let him rape me_," she whispered hotly in French. "S'il vous plaît."

Landa's eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise.

"Rape?" Landa called in German. She saw a nervous smile reach Hellstrom's face. He shook his head, looking amiably at their captive.

"Nein," he grinned. "Nein, she misunderstands-"

"S'il vous plaît," Audrey interrupted quickly in French. "Don't, I am begging you-"

"Shut up," Hellstrom spat at her.

"I'll deal with her," Landa said smoothly. "Thank you Sturmbannführer Hellstrom."

Hellstrom's mouth opened but he had no response. Instead, he snapped a heil, the young soldiers behind him copying with anxious eyes, all turning to leave their fugitive alone with the Standartenführer.

Landa let go of her and she stepped back with a smooth step, her hand coming to her lip to tentatively investigate the damage. Landa whistled at one of a fresh young solider, who turned and glanced the pair.

"Go get her coat," Landa commanded with a flick of his hand. He jogged and returned with the grey wool coat, gingerly handing it to her. She snatched it and shrugged it on, her hand returning to worry her face.

"So, you are Free France?" Landa asked casually. Audrey shook her head, forcefully pushing the back of her hand against the cut on her lip. He offered her handkerchief and she took it, pressing it to the bleeding corner of her mouth.

"It's my godmother's home," she said evenly. "She's unwell. I've been checking on her."

"Unwell?"

"Her mind…" Audrey elaborated vaguely, eyes searching for Marion in the crowd. "Somedays she can't remember things that she should."

"And who are you?" Landa asked, a bemused grin reaching his face, eyebrows raised in patient anticipation.

"Audrey Loewe," she said, still distracted.

"Quite a German name," Landa said, the same friendly tone hitting his French.

"I'm from Luxembourg. My father was German."

"Was?"

"He's since passed," Audrey offered tersely. "As has my mother."

"The proverbial orphan," Landa said with a pouting frown. "Shame."

She didn't know how to respond. Her gaze returned to him and she watched carefully, eyes scouring his intimidating uniform for clues.

"Ah!" he said with a small clap of his hands. "I should introduce myself properly. I am Colonel Hans Landa of the SS."

The name snagged a memory of Audrey's and her eyes swelled with recognition. He offered a hand forward to shake hers, but she couldn't move, eyes still in shock that someone so infamous was smiling so amiably at her.

"Oh," he smiled, looking deeply amused. He dropped his hand. "You've heard of me?"

She nodded slowly. A cunning grin caught his mouth as he let out a small huff of laughter.

"My reputation proceeds me, of course," he said.

"Everyone in France has heard of you," she responded, voice calm. He nodded in agreement, drinking her in.

"I think you should head home Mademoiselle Loewe," he tutted. "I am sure you have a busy Sunday planned."

She blinked in shock, sure there would be handcuffs on her wrists. She looked away once again, eyes sharply searching the gaps between the swarming Germans.

"What about Marion?" She asked impulsively, unable to withhold the thought.

Landa considered this, eyes trained on the young woman with keen regard.

"If her mind is as afflicted as you say," he told her with a shrug. "We shall set her free, she will be no use to us alive or dead."

Audrey nodded in agreement. Landa raised a hand and shooed her as though she were a stray cat, grinning at her as she passed back the blood-splattered handkerchief.

"Think of it as a gift," he said easily, clicking to summon a young soldier who opened a leather planner and held it out to his commander. Landa pulled a fresh and small white calling card, passing it to Audrey with a flick of his wrists. She held it, eyes trained on the infamous Nazi.

"Off you go," he said in a sing-song voice, smiling benevolently at her.

She left without looking back, her heels clicking against the street.

Landa watched her blond hair flow as she rushed off into the dawn, a new smirk hitting his lips.

Audrey Loewe was a thin red string that connected several Free France activities across the city of Paris. A blonde woman who appeared again and again in reports but was never arrested. Almost always let go by inexperienced officers, all reporting her as harmless or a spectator. Hans could read between the lines. She knew how to flirt, to charm, to escape.

He had glanced across the pictures earlier that day of her mother and father, juxtaposed by the violent death they both met, documented in cold and clinical black ink. In the Winter of 1940, Audrey's father had been beaten to death and her mother shot in the head as she wept over her husband's body. Teenage Audrey Loewe had been spared, simply because the gun had jammed, and Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Klutch of the SS had lost his patience and screamed her into the snowy forest nearby her home. The Loewe's had been hiding their Jewish neighbours, ferrying them to Spain with their own funds. The wealthy couple that had worked beneath the Nazi occupation for at least three months before the SS had found them, murdering them both in cold blood in the snow. Hans imagined his new acquaintance, covered in her parent's blood, stumbling through the snowing night, tears cutting through the dried blood pressed to her skin.

Hans on occasion had let young women escape. Why he had done this he honestly didn't know. He imagined it was similar to when a cat frees a mouse, just a moment of curiosity rather than compassion. He imagined Klutch thought she would freeze to death, little Audrey Loewe, but no. She had snuck back into the house, taken her papers and some cash, and crossed to Paris all by herself.

And there she stood, right in front of Hans Landa, walking away from him against the cool autumn air, the clip of her heels still reaching his ears.

There wasn't much more about her. Her father Gabriel Loewe's family was established and important. Luxembourgish natives. Her mother was Russian, and since he had married her in Moscow, there was no background information on Anna Milt. The entire Nazi party relied on meticulously records, and a lack of records on anyone was always a problem.

He had one photo of Audrey, taken for her papers. Her sunken but pretty face looked out, her eyes numb against the flash of the camera. He pulled it from his coat pocket, eyes falling from the back of her head to once again glanced down at the woman who appeared to be smoke. Present but untouchable.

Hans smiled to himself, flicking the corner of the picture with a theatrical flourish. Paris had been tedious at best, exhaustingly boring at worst. Just trips to the countryside with varying success. He always met his 'count'. No one could find someone the way that he could. He put himself against the great detectives of fiction, Poirot, Sherlock, his skills were unparalleled. It had led to a comfortable life, one he was sure would continue once the war was done. Perhaps a cabinet position or some coveted position within the Austrian police force.

But Hans didn't like comfortable. He liked exciting. He liked the hunt.

So, to watch her walk away, her steps uneven as she disappeared into the Paris night, he finally felt a flash of excitement. A feeling he had yearned for since stepping into the city of lights.

He doubted it was the last time he would lay eyes on Audrey Loewe.


	2. Chapter 2

Hans Landa watched patiently from the back seat of his Black Mercedes-Benz staff car, the young and silent driver keeping his eyes forward. Landa had scoured to find all the information that seemed to exist on Audrey Loewe, surprised at the sheer lack of it. He casually flipped open the manila folder, eyes tracing over the details despite the fact he now knew them off by heart.

Audrey Loewe, twenty-two years old, born to Gabriel Loewe, physician and upstanding member of the community, and Russian-born Anna Loewe née Milt, a housewife. Raised in Luxembourg. Orphaned at 19.

Anything meaningful stopped there.

Audrey was a seamstress at a local atelier in a fashionable distract of Paris. The house catered to wealthy Europeans, and her ability to speak French, German, Luxembourgish, English, and Russian made her a valuable asset. Even Landa, who was very rarely impressed, was quietly affected by such a command of language. He had smiled specifically when he had learnt that she was well versed in so many languages when he had visited the atelier after hours a few days prior. He'd asked about commissioning a tuxedo, and the owner had eyed him with greed. Landa had casually enquired if there was anyone who spoke good German and the owner, Mousier Jaques Brodeur, had gladly gushed and assured Colonel Landa that one of their junior staff, Audrey Loewe, spoke 'Wunderbar Deutsche'.

"She's a polyglot," Moonrise Brodeur had grinned. "Honestly Colonel, whatever language you want, I'm sure she can oblige!".

She didn't seem to be passionate about her work, despite working in such an esteemed atelier, rather this was a way for her to make money safely, and it seemed to be what the widowed Madame Marion Dubois could afford to train her goddaughter as. In another life, Landa did not doubt that Audrey would likely have been a doctor. She appeared very intelligent, finishing top of her class in her secondary education. If the war hadn't begun, her wealthy parents had lived, and her tertiary education had commenced, she would be living a much more luxurious life than the one she led. She had previously lived in a poor part of town in a tiny room, but recently she had moved to Marion's empty home. He guessed there was probably still Free France blood on the floorboards.

She didn't seem to be social. He hadn't seen her about with friends or with men during the week he had had her followed about. The reports read that she kept to herself. She worked, she lined up for rations, and she hid away in her apartment. Perhaps she was an outcast, an unsocial creature who smelt off-kilter, a stench of tragedy, but he doubted that. She was a pretty girl.

Audrey was in some way loosely connected with every rebellious person or group in Paris. Landa was fascinated by this. It at first glance could be considered a coincidence. She would have only known Arthur when she arrived, a man who was very deeply organised with Free France. From this perspective, it made sense that she would only know people like that, the only people she would have contact with.

But she knew _everyone_.

Most interestingly he noted that she had been a tutor at a nearby Parisian school a few years ago, and in the months she worked there, teaching sowing to the young women, the Jewish children enrolled mysteriously disappeared. She had a few of these incidences. One while volunteering with the red cross, one while working at another school. Gone. No trace.

He observed his neatly written notes for a moment more, eyes flickering up to see her walking calmly from Marion's apartment, basket in her arm, blinking against the early morning light. She'd attended church at 6 am, in her best clothes, and he noted she had not bothered to change.

He tapped the roof of the car, pleased by the young driver's ability to silently pull away and not draw attention, keeping a healthy distance. Landa noticed several of his soldiers whistle her as she paced quickly down winding Parisian streets. Each time she would smile amiably, protecting herself from further advances or spurned anger.

But she always walked faster.

He followed her to a nearby rations market, smiling to see her warmly greeted by vendors and shoppers. He stepped from the car without warning, abandoning her file behind him as he swiftly walked.

It was like the red sea when he wore his uniform, and yes, he was aware of the irony of that. The people of Paris parted, eyes downcast, unable to meet his gaze as he walked casually through the market. His nose turned at the foul smell of stale bread, salted meats, no fresh fruit or food in sight. Disgusting.

He spotted her ahead, pulling a stale half loaf of bread into her basket, chatting casually with the man behind the table in quick and easy French. She was nodding to whatever he was saying, smiling softly.

"Mademoiselle Loewe!"

She stilled, eyes turning to Landa. He smiled warmly, clapping his hands together as a greeting as he paused a few feet from her.

She looked very pretty, her hair tied back by a velvet ribbon.

"Bonjour Colonel Landa," she called evenly. "How are you today?"

"Très Bien Mademoiselle Loewe," he warmly smiled. "How does this fine Sunday treat you?"

"Well," she responded, walking towards him, leaving the anxious vender behind her. Landa felt his lips curl to watch her walk towards him, her pace slow and unbothered. "I have been to church and now I am collecting my rations, do you wish to see my papers?"

She instinctively reached into her handbag, but he shook his head, tutting quickly.

"Non, non," he smiled, almost fox-like in his friendliness, dimples deepening. "Simply, I am enjoying a Sunday, and saw you in the crowd."

Her fingers stilled in her bag and her eyebrows furrowed, watching him carefully.

"What are your plans now Mademoiselle Loewe?" Landa asked pleasantly, eyeing her still with a cunning that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand.

"I am going home," she said simply.

"To your room in the 18th arrondissement, or Madame Dubois apartment in the 3rd?" Landa asked easily as he softly craned his neck to look into her basket.

"The third," Audrey said, her eyes taking on an almost imperceptible harshness at the question. She knew he already knew the answer. Was he seeing if she lied easily?

"May I see your basket, Mademoiselle Loewe?" He asked, holding out an expectant leather-gloved palm. She passed it smoothly, stepping away when he took it, turning her eyes to view the wide berth that people gave them, all of their eyes panicked to see her so close to an SS officer. None offered interference, not that she could honestly blame them.

He searched a gloved hand through it, turning over to see salted meat, stale bread, a bag of rice, coffee, butter, potatoes, and leaks. It was bleak indeed. He removed his hand and flicked his fingers, as though trying to rid himself of any remaining poverty coating his gloves.

She took it back, holding it close to her as she eyed him coolly. The evident calm on her face amused him. Most people of Paris looked glassy-eyed, desperately appearing calm or cool or controlled. Appearing, being the keyword. He was used to watching those flutters of anxiety, fear, or agitation linger, unmasked, across eyes and features. Twitches on mouths, clenching of jaws.

But she was calm, cool, controlled. There was no flinch, no minute moment of her true self showing.

Her expressionless boredom at their interaction thrilled him.

"It's heavy," he stated conversationally. "I shall drive you home."

It wasn't a question. She stared, trying to formulate an argument against it, but all failed, and instead, she nodded and followed him with a lowered gaze back through the market to his waiting car. He opened the door for her, allowing her to slip in, finding a nasty smile catch his lips as her eyes fell on the open folder about her.

She read it quickly as he walked to the other side of the car, eyebrows harshly furrowed. Why would he be interested in her?

He sat swiftly, his hand coming to gather the file, but she gently rested her hand atop his, eyes burning onto a particular morsel of the research.

"Is that a picture of my mama?" She asked almost silently, eyes burning against the black and white picture of her dead mother. Anna Loewe was the spitting image of her daughter, soft hair and almond eyes. They shared the same round face, same nose, the tip slightly upturned, high cheekbones, heart-shaped lips. Audrey's blue eyes and blonde hair must have been inherited from her father. He wondered if Audrey's mother also had the little gap in her front teeth, her mouth closed in the only picture he could find of her. A slight _ents du bonheur_ was evident in Audrey's smile, not that she was giving him a view of it at that moment.

"Oui," he noted, tapping the top of the car to tell the driver to go. Audrey didn't look up when Landa called out Marion's address to the driver, unnerved that he knew it already off by heart.

"May I have it?" She asked politely. Landa smiled amiably, his eyes crinkling. She still hadn't looked up, her view transfixed by the black and white picture in front of her.

He snapped the file closed as the answer.

Audrey withdrew her hands to her lap, eyes burning against the folder as though she was willing herself to stare through the manila cover, to gaze once again at the image of a woman lost to her many winters ago.

He waited for her to ask why he had the file, how he knew she was at the market, why he had followed her. He waited and waited but she didn't oblige. Instead, she looked ahead, silent and stoic as they whizzed through the streets of Paris.

He doubted it was the first time she'd been followed.

"How do you like being a seamstress?" Landa asked, lighting a cigarette that he un-clicked from its gold case. He thrust it towards to her as an offer, raising his brows to cox her with a cool expectant expression. Audrey looked at the beautiful golden case and imagined the dead Jewish hand it had been clawed from.

"Non, merci," she replied. Silence permitted for a moment before she answered. "It is work."

"Ah," Landa said with a huff of laughter. "Work is work, of course. Your eye and lip are healing well I see."

She glanced her reflection against the glass of the car window, the view of Paris a blur outside it. Her eye had purpled, her lip too. It looked like nothing worse than a lover's tiff or a nasty fall. She shrugged, keeping her gaze firmly fixated out the window.

"Our reports often review you as affable," Landa said as he blew the first drag of smoke from his lips. "Friendly. Charming. Usually, the men write of you as though you were a childhood sweetheart or a teenage crush."

She didn't look but he saw her shoulders tense.

"I am not getting this impression," he chuckled lightly. She turned slowly, looking up at him with a wave of well-tempered anger.

"Well… look what happens to my lip and my eye when I do not act this way with your men," she said simply. Landa let a large smile spread his face, a fresh chuckle emerging as he beamed at her.

"Of course," he said, taking a fresh drag of tobacco. "How silly of me."

She turned to stare forward once more.

He smiled upon her benevolently for the rest of the ride, watching her tight expression and tense shoulders with glee. She attempted to fling herself from the car when they arrived, but he gently pressed his hand to her knee, freezing her in place.

"Ah, ah, ah," he scolded. "I am a gentleman, let me get the door and your groceries."

She did not respond but stayed seated, levelling her gaze to the back of the drivers head once more.

He moved slowly, taking his time as he circled the car, snuffing his cigarette beneath his boot as he went. He offered his arm to her once he opened the door, delighted to see her take it despite the radiating tension that left her skin. He took the basket in his other, walking her as though they were old friends up the staircase that led to her godmother's apartment. He began to whistle easily, a tune she recognised as Hämmelsmarsch, a famous Luxembourgish folk song.

"Do you miss Rumelange?" He asked casually as the turned the corner of the staircase.

She bristled to hear him mention her home town, her eyes floating up briefly to take in his warm and smiling face.

"Oui," she said unemotionally.

"It's a far journey to Paris," he noted with levity. "How long is that, a day by train? Longer?"

"It is a journey," she agreed vaguely.

"Much quicker to Belgium or Germany," he mused. She didn't respond, her eyes held firm and forward. "Do you know anyone in Belgium or Germany?"

She didn't answer.

"We spoke Russian at home," she said flatly, keeping her expression unreadable. "I can speak Luxembourgish but my German, the way you speak it, is not very good."

"Nein, nein, nein," Landa laughed, admonishing her playfully in German. "I heard you the other night, you speak _very_ good German."

"My German is good for begging only, Standartenführer Landa," she said coldly in cool Germanic tones. He let out a fresh bemused chuckle at her response, finally arriving at her front door. He smiled at her as she unlocked the door, passing her basket of groceries with a fresh cunning smile.

He saw her wait, allowing him the breadth and space to enter the home if he wished, but he knew she was smarter than that. She knew he'd enter if she wanted him to or not.

"Marion Dubois is at the American Hospital of Paris, under the care of the Red Cross," Landa said nonchalantly, as though discussing the weather. "I interviewed her myself, you are right, she's quite mad."

He saw a rush of relief hit Audrey without permission, her shoulders rolling inward, her fingers wrapping the door frame till her knuckles turned white.

"You may retrieve her at your discretion," Landa said coolly.

She nodded, but he noted that she didn't say thank you.

"Have a blessed Sunday Mademoiselle Loewe," he said with a fresh suave smile. "I hope to see you in the near future."

She didn't respond at all, watching him till he had exited the building. He felt her blue eyes burn the back of his neck as he took each step with slow purposefulness, chuckling lightly to himself as he pushed the door open, his footsteps landing back on the grey Parisian street. He swiftly slid into the back of the car, motioning the driver to take him back to The Majestic Hotel. Landa absentmindedly flipped open her folder, removing a pen from his pocket with fresh notes formulating at the front of his mind but paused.

The small black and white photo of Audrey's mother was missing.

He blinked once before allowing a deep chuckle to rumble from his chest, shaking his head in delight at such a brazen act by the timid and penniless Fräulein Loewe.

He tutted to himself, delighted to find someone worth pursuing in Paris.


	3. Chapter 3

Audrey waited patiently in the hallway of the busy ward, the bustling hospital rushing around her. The American Hospital of Paris was one of the few swastika free buildings in all of Paris, and despite the circumstances, Audrey felt as though she could breathe easily for a moment.

The firm footsteps of Doctor Oscar Clément roused her as she glanced the red cross doctor, a kind smile pressed to his young and handsome face. She saw the flash in his eyes that he was relieved that she was alive.

She weakly smiled in return as he quickly walked up to her, his tall frame towering hers when he reached her. He kissed her cheek swiftly, embracing her for a short moment. She felt his lean body bend to hers, her hand lifelessly patting him on the back as his curling brown hair tickled her cheek. He swiftly stepped back and once again involuntarily reviewing her wounds.

"I'm fine," Audrey said, waving her hand to dissuade him.

"I think you should let me examine you, Audrey," he murmured. The young seamstress had been a regular fixture during his visits to the late Arthur Dubois home. He had a soft spot for her, the tragic young woman with the uncompromising blue eyes.

Neither ever addressed the circumstances and circles in which they knew of one another.

"How is Marion?" Audrey asked, ignoring his request.

He sighed heavily, his shoulders falling with the weight of worry.

"She _cannot_ stay in Paris," he said in a low voice. "She is declining rapidly, and soon she will be out wandering the streets in the middle of the night. It's a miracle the Nazi's released her at all, I wouldn't want to chance this luck twice."

Audrey let it sink in, her jaw growing tight as her teeth clenched in an attempt to keep her emotions at bay.

"I know she isn't well but-"

"But nothing," Doctor Clément quietly interrupted. "Her mind is beyond repair Audrey. Grief has taken a blow."

She nodded, turning away for a moment to consider what she was being told.

"She has a sister in the countryside," Audrey considered aloud, her teeth worrying her nail as she chewed at her thumb.

"Get her out of Paris Audrey," he said softly. "…and I think you should follow."

"I can't," Audrey said swiftly with a shake of her head. "I have work here, her sister can't afford it. She'll need money."

Doctor Clément sighed, his hand coming to rub the back of his neck.

"If that's the only reason…." Doctor Clément began softly. Audrey's eyes flashed as she stepped close to him, watching him suspiciously.

"Of course," she whispered hotly. "What are you inferring-"

"Nothing," Doctor Clément began softly. "But you and Arthur certainly had some shared ideologies-"

"Are you a Nazi now?" She asked quietly, eyes furious.

"No," Doctor Clément whispered. "Come on Audrey, you know that I don't-"

"Then don't worry yourself with what I do or don't do," she whispered with cold eyes.

Clément sighed, knowing better than to push her. He'd heard murmurings about her, that she was clever and tricky and involved though he was never sure to what capacity. Not that he wanted to know. Knowledge made you vulnerable to extraction under Nazi occupation.

"Get her out of Paris Audrey," Doctor Clément said with a soft sigh. "I'll even let you borrow my car."

Audrey's eyes softened at the offer. She nodded softly, lifting her hand to rest it on Doctor Clément's forearm arm as a silent thank you.

They'd left three days later, all of Marion's earthly possessions bundled into the car, the barebones of the apartment left behind. Audrey had moved her things into it, surprised that it hadn't been claimed by the occupiers, but realised they probably had very little use for a small two-bedroom apartment in an inner-city arrondissement of Paris. They had everything else. The Louvre, the Majestic Hotel, and even the Folies-Belleville were all now practically German states, barely a lick of French spoken in each. Her godmother's apartment surely had no appeal.

They'd driven out to Marion's sister's home in silence, Marion sedated by a stream of pills that Doctor Clément had insisted upon. Lunch had been taken in near silence as Audrey had watched Marion's sister observe her in silence. Ines Bisset watched Audrey with a hawk-like gaze throughout the meal, head tilted in her cool regard for the small blonde woman.

Marion had taken to her room after once again mistaking Audrey for her dead mother, her tired sister Ines pushing her beloved Marion to the bed, telling her to rest easily.

Audrey had stood with the Ines on the porch afterwards, eyes tracked to the unfamiliar woman with an uneasy feeling.

"She's not well," Ines said as she lit a fresh cigarette, inhaling deeply. She offered Audrey a drag who tentatively took the burning stick, breathing in on the unfamiliar odour of smoke and tobacco.

"She isn't," Audrey agreed as she exhaled, passing the cigarette back to its owner.

They stood in the tense silence. Ines smoked slowly, eyes not laying upon Audrey as they looked out onto the woods that surrounded her isolated home. Audrey looked apprehensively at her. Ines had a hardened expression of a woman who had lived a very long and exhausting life. Audrey quietly considered that she may have met Ines when she was very young, but she wasn't sure.

Ines finished her cigarette, crushing the butt beneath her shoe.

"I think you're making it worse," Ines said with calm finality. Audrey stared at her, unable to respond to such an accusation.

"Excusez-Moi?" Audrey finally asked, face incredulous.

"She needs to be around people from her early life," Ines sighed. "People that lower her confusion. You're just going to confuse her. You look just like your darling mother…"

Audrey swallowed thickly. Ines turned her gaze to her.

"And your mother wasn't exactly Aryan."

Audrey stilled entirely.

A passing Aryan, that is what her father had jokingly referred to her as. A blonde, blue-eyed, Hebrew. Her Russian-Jewish mother had married a gentile German doctor, and the two had lived an undisrupted and non-practising in the beautiful lush countryside of Luxembourg. So although Audrey had never lit a Menorah, eaten at Shabbat, or attended Temple in any real capacity, her mother's blood made her as Jewish as any other in the eyes of the Nazi's. Her mother's family had stayed in Russia, and Russia wasn't about to share any information with the Nazi's. Her parents had chosen to stay under the impending occupation, to help their friends flee to Vichy, to Spain, to America. Anywhere that was away. As a Russian, Anna Loewe had felt safe. What knowledge would those German's have of her? A woman from a closed-communist state. A secret held by the Kremlin. Audrey's heritage had been a known secret, leaving her free to exist in a space that did not wish her to exist at all.

"Don't worry," Ines murmured. "I'm not going to tell anyone."

Audrey watched her, jaw clenched.

Ines let a new cigarette, taking a long drag.

"But I can't promise that Marion won't."

The meaning of Ines' words sunk to Audrey like a knife to the chest. It was not Audrey that would worsen Marion. Not her face and smile, her speech and action. It was Marion, seeped in memories of a life before the Nazi occupation, a youth spent in Luxembourg, who may in passing harmlessly note that her friend 'Anna' was Jewish. That 'Anna' visited on a schedule or was a routine part of her life. Marion may unwittingly spill Audrey's true identity to those hellbent on destroying her.

Audrey could only nod against the force of Ines' truth.

"You're right," Audrey finally said quietly, lifting her glassy eyes to stare into the thick forest that surrounded Ines' country home, to listen to the rustle of the wind.

"I know," Ines said sadly, passing the cigarette to Audrey, who burned it out on a few last drags. "It doesn't make it right."

The harsh truth hung between the two women and Audrey nodded deftly.

Ines had ushered her into Marion's bedroom, slowly waking up her older sister with a warm hand on her shoulder.

"Audrey has to go," Ines murmured. "But she'd like to say goodbye."

Audrey walked forward tentatively, lowering herself to kneel beside Marion's bed.

"Hello darling," Marion murmured, eyes still lingering with sleep and grief.

"Hello tatie," she said with a heavy sigh, trying to keep her voice bright and happy. Calm and comforting. "I have to get back before curfew, but Ines is going to take care of you now… and she's going to do a good job, I promise."

"I know," Marion said with a small smile. "Will you come back?"

Audrey gave a small nod.

"Yes," she said in a soft voice. "When Paris is more French. When they're gone, I'll come to get you, ok? I promise."

Marion nodded vaguely, and Audrey gave her a tearful smile.

"Oh darling," she murmured, her hand rising to cup Audrey's face. "You are so sad!"

Audrey gave a fresh weak smile and nodded weakly.

"You miss Gabriel," Marion said softly. Audrey blinked before letting out a breath of laughter, nodding as she swiped a tear that escaped her eyes.

"Yes," she nodded, gulping at her emotion.

"He's fine," Marion murmured, her hand coming to pat Audrey's hand. "He's at home Anna, you'll be with him soon."

"I'm sure you're right," Audrey said, squeezing Marion's hand. "He misses you."

"I miss him," Marion sighed, eyes fluttering closed once more. Audrey laid a soft kiss to her godmother's head.

"I miss you," Audrey whispered, leaning back with a soft sad smile.

"I'll see you soon again, I'm sure," Marion murmured, sleep dragging her under. Audrey stood and left, trying her best to keep her unfamiliar emotions in check.

Ines walked her to the kitchen and without warning pulled Audrey into a tight hug, her arms wrapped firmly about the young woman. Audrey stilled before letting the swell of feeling take over her, weeping brokenly against the woman who was a stranger a day ago.

"It's not fair," Ines stated simply, stroking down the young woman's hair. Audrey nodded softly, stepping back to weakly wipe away her tears.

"It's not," Audrey agreed in a tight voice. She was so tired of hiding, of being hated, of fearing for her life at any given moment, hidden in plain sight. Desperately trying to avoid detection. Trying to survive. Marion and Arthur were the final people on earth who knew her, and now they were gone. One to dust, one into the recesses of her mind.

Ines gave her a sad and sympathetic look, squeezing her shoulder in a weak attempt to comfort the stranger.

"Your secrets are safe here," Ines promised.

Audrey nodded softly, knowing that this was the closest to being witnessed that she may ever have again.


	4. Chapter 4

She had left and driven for an hour before finally pulling over on an empty road. Her eyes closed as she rested her tired head against the steering wheel, the weight of the world burdening her bones. Within ten days she felt as though she had lost everything. Every connection and cornerstone that tethered her to society, made her feel human, were now severed. She was so tired of being a ghost, haunting her own empty life.

She had numbly stepped from the car, dragging her basket with her, packed with food by Ines, a half-hearted gesture upon her leaving. An unspoken, tactile apology, a gift of grief. Audrey walked deftly into the forest nearby, hoping to find a moment of peace and solitude against the autumn leaves.

She had walked in her daze for a long moment when the unfamiliar words reached her. She had paused against a tree, ears strained against the unfamiliar tones and syllables. She edged forward, pulling the paring knife from her basket and wrapping it in a handkerchief, stuffing it into the pocket of her dress. She took them in, the group of men in the gully, laughing loudly, dressed in different shades of brown and grey.

At first, she considered them to be Romany Travellers, perhaps men seeking work, but as her eyes adjusted to the scene she saw the unmistakable twisted bodies of uniformed men, the bloody sheen on the bat held by the tall man. The tones became familiar.

English.

English speaking men in the French countryside, surrounded by the bodies of bloodied Nazi's, pinning a young soldier to the ground, drawing on him with a knife as he screamed as though it were a pen to paper.

Audrey froze in place, eyes wide as she took in the scene.

Inglorious Basterds.

A myth, or so she thought, of American Jews exacting biblical revenge on the Nazi's that had infested France as though they were rats. She had heard Arthur speak of them, in hushed and excited tones to his fellow rebels. This fairy-tale which inspired fear in some and hope in others. The violent angels sent to water the fields with blood, the national anthem made real. Audrey watched the Nazi soldier run away, laughter spreading through the American men like fire.

Audrey took a small step backwards and froze at the echoing snap of a stick beneath her shoe. The laughter froze, heads swivelling to her. She stood frozen for a second too long, running only a few steps away before an arm wrapped her waist with firm hold when he caught her, deaf to her screams in French to be unhanded. Her feet couldn't reach the ground as she kicked, lugged by the unseen American, who was laughing and calling out to his fellow soldiers.

She was tossed to her knees at the centre of the gully in front of their leader, the picnic basket flinging from her arm, food flying across the floor. The leader walked over easily, picking up an apple in a fluid movement and taking a loud bite from its red flesh.

"Well, what do we have here?" He called in his American drawl, the apple still in his gnashing teeth. She was frozen on her hands and knees, looking up behind a curtain of blonde hair that fell around her face.

A laugh rippled through the men and she felt her stomach constrict in all too familiar fear and anticipation.

"Do you speak English missy?"

She didn't answer, she simply stared at him, frozen in place.

The leader began to pick up the contents of the basket, tossing it to nearby soldiers who ravenously ate her picnic, laughing and chatting with their mouths full of food.

"Now did you see what our boy could do with a bat here?" The leader asked. She still didn't respond, despite a hand behind her grabbing her shoulders and pulling her so she kneeling in front of him, as though taking mass.

The huge man with the bat sauntered to her easily, raising the bat to her head. She winced at the smell of fresh blood and he grinned, pulling it away.

"Sorry sweetheart," he said in his unfamiliar accent. "Let me clean that up for you."

The men laughed rowdily once more as he wiped it on the uniform of the dead solider behind her, his head an unrecognisable pulp. She looked and gulped the sick that climbed her throat, training her eyes back in front of her once more. The tall man walked in front of her, smiling easily with dark eyes as he once again lined the bat up against her head.

"What did you see here sweetheart?" the leader called out.

She was silent, keeping eye contact with the tall man in front of her. Her expression was unreadable.

"Maybe she doesn't speak English Aldo," the tall man said to his leader. Aldo shrugged, the two glancing to one another, his eyes breaking from hers for only a second.

She seized her opportunity, her hand diving into her pocket and snatching her knife with expert grip, slashing outwards at the tall man. He dropped the bat with a yell and she rushed away, scrambling over the dead Nazi and reaching her feet, stumbling into a run.

The American's surrounded her, arms outstretched with gleeful smiles to see someone finally put up a fight.

"Bring her back!" Aldo yelled with a laugh, mouth full of fresh apple. "_Alive_!"

Audrey slashed at a nearby soldier who jumped back with a startled chuckle. She was eyeing for an opening to rush through when she was knocked to the ground, the knife falling from her hand and bouncing across the leaves. She struggled and fought, crying out as a strong hand caught her wrists above her head, the tall man crowding her body, his knees either side of her waist. She kicked viciously but fruitlessly, yelling out in French for him to 'stop'. The laughter ran through the platoon as the tall man glared down at her.

Aldo walked slowly, clapping languidly as he went. She could see his grinning face over the shoulder of the man pinning her to the ground.

"My boy Donny here doesn't take well to a sneak attack," Aldo said.

"I could break your neck." Donny snarled and she glared vehemently.

"Do it," she spat in English.

A fresh wave of laughter ran the men, some whistling, others clapping.

"Well looks like our little lady here is braver than _all_ those Nazis we just scalped," Aldo said and the laughter spread once more. "Now if we let you up little lady, will you fight us?"

"Yes," she snarled. "You and your bat man!"

She struggled once more and the laughter spread.

"You gonna kill us because you're a Jew-hating nazi, huh?" Donny asked with a nasty sneer.

She stilled, total indignation on her face.

Audrey spat. Donny reared back and she scrambled away. She only got a foot of distance before he grabbed her roughly and pinned her beneath him once more.

"I am not a nazi!" Audrey shrieked. "You don't call me that! Fuck you, fuck you!"

Aldo roared with laughter. Her English had failed her and she shrieked her rebuttals in French. Donny pinned her harder until Aldo whistled.

"Stand her up," he said with a grin. Donny held her up and dragged her roughly, standing her front of him. His arm wrapped vice-like around her neck, her chin tucked atop the crook of his elbow. She was on her tippy toes, doing her best to keep herself free. Fresh blood that she had extracted from his arm sat against her skin. She stilled, glaring viciously at Aldo.

"So, you're not a nazi then?" Aldo asked. She shook her head viciously.

"_How dare you_," she spat.

A murmur of laughter ran through once more.

"Who are you then?" Aldo asked, walking closer to her. She leant back involuntarily into Donny's grip, swallowing thickly at the predicament. Her temper had gotten the better of her and now her mind was running out of ways to escape.

Aldo snatched her purse from her shoulder and tossed it to a nearby soldier, ordering them to go through it.

"Audrey Loewe," she finally uttered. "I live in Paris."

"What are you doing out in these parts Miss Loewe?" Aldo asked.

"Bringing my godmother to her sister," Audrey offered tensely. "She is unwell."

The solider with her bag whistled, passing a small rectangle of paper to Aldo. He looked at it, eyebrows furrowing before conferring with a nearby soldier who spoke softly in a German accent.

Aldo nodded, hand coming to rub his chin as he casually walked back to her. He held the card between two fingers and lifted it to her view.

"Care to explain this missy?"

She looked at the small card with dread, Standartenführer Hans Landa's name printed clearly, Nazi insignia decorating the small white space.

"I can.. I…" Audrey began helplessly.

"Now we don't take kindly to Nazis," Aldo said, a hard, new expression setting his face. She felt Donny's arm tense on her neck.

"I'm not," she said, her eyes filling with panic.

"You just _know_ the Jew Hunter?" Aldo asked sarcastically, raising an unbelieving expression towards her.

"No," she said. "Yes… his officer gave me this black eye, he, he just stopped it- I don't know him-"

"The Jew Hunter _saved_ you?" Aldo asked, quirking his eyebrow as laughter rippled through the men.

"No," Audrey said. "Yes… I… he just gave it to me. I don't know him."

"So, what are we gonna do with you?" He asked. "Gentile beauty? Hans Landa's act of mercy?"

She felt her stomach constrict, panicked tears clouding her gaze.

"It's not-"

"Nazi or nazi sympathiser, you're all the same to us," Aldo called. A shout of agreement ran through his men.

"I-"

Donny's arm pushed hard to her throat and she reached up to pull at it, slippery from the blood she had drawn from him. Her toes momentarily lifted from the ground, scraping across the dead leaves.

"Ok, let's take a vote!" Aldo yelled. The men jeered their enthusiasm. "How we gonna deal with this?"

"The same way we deal with all Nazis," an American called, swinging the fresh Nazi scalp above his head. Laughter erupted from the platoon.

"Maybe make that batting cage two-for-one today!" One man yelled. "I could use another movie."

Donny rumbled a chuckle behind her and she crushed herself to him, trying to loosen the ever-tensing grip he exerted onto her windpipe. Her hands scratched at his arm. She reached up and tried hitting his face with an open palm as she desperately tried to draw compressed breath, but he smoothly moved his head, laughing once more.

"Well we wouldn't usually do that with a woman," Aldo called. "But… she ain't a woman, she's a Nazi."

The hoots and hollers arose once again. A new man walked forward and picked up Donny's bat, handing it to him. He held it in his spare hand, calling out to the crowd, eliciting a spark of vicious excitement. His arm was cutting off her air now, but he seemed unaware, too busy pumping the bat above his head to notice her nails dig to his skin, her back pressed to him, feet scrambling for the ground, trying desperately to free herself from the force she felt against her throat.

"_Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad_."

Donny froze at the desperate, breathless words beneath him, his arm slacking. She took in a choked gasp, hands clinging to his arm to keep herself upright as her feet met back with the earth.

"What the fuck did she just say?" Aldo called, noting the silence that now prevailed the men around her. The laughter petered-off across the gully replaced instead by wide-eyed shock.

"Say that again," Donny ordered, spinning her around and grabbing her chin in his grip. She gasped for air, hands pushing at him as she tried to dull the ringing in her ears. "Say it again!"

"_Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad_," she gasped weakly, her hand coming to wrap her throat and protect it from further harm, the other still pushing against Donny's chest. Donny let go of her, swiftly stepping back in shock, bat slacking in his grip.

Silence ran the group as she sunk to her knees, gasping for air, one hand dug to the ground below, the other encasing her throat. Donny glanced back to Aldo in genuine shock.

"Could a Nazi learn that?" Aldo asked quietly. Donny stared, unable to answer. Aldo walked slowly to her, crouching in front of her gasping form.

He held up the card, the insignia glaring at her as she looked up, pale and breathless, still trying to fill her crumpled lungs.

"Does he know that you're Jewish?"

She shook her head, dropping it to focus on her breathing once more. She could hear them talking amongst themselves as she willed her breathing to return to normal, taking thick swallows against her crushed throat, her eyes watering.

"You're gonna wait here with this one," she heard Aldo call. "Wicki, make sure she's breathing and talking by the time we get back from the damn orchid."

She heard the clearing of footsteps as the men marched away, muttering worriedly between each other. She saw his boots enter her vision and she looked up, eyes still stinging, to see the imposing Wicki.

"Try breathing slower," he offered. She nodded weakly, settling back as she fell hard on her behind, legs crumpled, her hand still encasing her tender throat as she took deep and purposeful lungful of air. He settled into a crouch in front of her, his gun slung in front of him as he lit himself a cigarette.

"Where in Paris are you from?" He asked casually. She noticed the German lilt to his English. She shook her head, eyes drifting to the dead Nazi nearby, his blood still slowly pooling around his body.

"Nein, Rumelange," she corrected. He raised his brows and nodded, giving a thoughtful frown.

"Bad place for Jews," he murmured in German.

"Everywhere is," she countered, finally feeling her breath return.

They had stayed in silence, Audrey massaging her throat, considering running once more, and Wicki smoking steadily, his free hand pressed to his gun as a friendly reminder that running would not be in her best interest.

The Basterds returned 6 cigarettes later.

"Up you get," Aldo called, fresh scalps hanging from his belt. Unfamiliar rough hands lifted her to her feet and she clenched her jaw, trying her best to keep her nerve.

"Relax," Aldo called. "We ain't about to kill one of our own."

Killing her wasn't what she was worried about.

"How'd you get that black eye and that bloody lip?" Aldo asked, taking a fresh snort of powder from a small tin box.

"The SS raided my godmother's home," she said.

"What, they just socked ya?" He asked. She could see the men milling in her peripheral vision, as Donny slowly walked to stand behind Aldo, his intense eyes burning into her.

"They…." She trialled off, closing her eyes as she steadied her nerve, seething in humiliation. "They tried to…"

"That's alright," Aldo interrupted, understanding the drift of what she was saying. "And the Jew Hunter stopped that?"

She opened her eyes and nodded slowly. Aldo gave a bemused frown, shaking his head.

"Well we all have to draw a line somewhere," he offered, a dark laugh running from the men around him. He saw her eyes nervously dart about.

"You don't need to worry about that," Donny said, pulling an offended furrowed brow. She nodded slowly, dropping her gaze once more.

"So what, Landa following you 'round now?" Aldo asked. She shrugged before nodding, her hand nervously coming back to her throat.

He gave another thoughtful frown, sighing heavily.

"Alright," he said. "Alright…."

Aldo scratched his chin and looked her over again. She was pretty and soft, the black eye giving her an air of vulnerability. Did Landa see her someone to protect or someone to investigate? Either way Hans Landa's interest in the little French female stood in front of him was a gift from the heavens.

"We could use you, sweetheart," he said after a long moment of silence. "Someone to keep an eye on him."

He saw the protests edge her lips, but his firm gaze silenced it.

"I don't…" she begun, voice trailing.

Aldo's eyes looked up to the dusky sky behind her, grinning softly.

"Take your time to think sweetheart," he said with a grin. "Getting dark, we can't let our new asset out after that curfew."

She looked up and nodded in uneasy agreement, realising that he was ultimately correct. They'd set up camp and she had uncomfortably loitered about, keeping her eyes low, doing her best to stay out the way. They'd dragged the dead bodies out of the way, into a nearby tunnel. They'd started a fire, set up an impromptu camp, taking turns to guard above with their almost cartoonishly large guns.

Audrey sat quietly to the side, watching them unfurl and cook dead rabbits they'd caught on their earlier escapade, emptying a knapsack full of apples near the fire. She sat on a nearby log, eyes downcast, wondering if she could escape later in the dark. Would she rather chance her luck with the Nazi's or the Basterds?

"Eat it."

She looked up to see Donny nearby, holding the apple out to her. She took it timidly and muttered thank you, dropping her gaze once again. He sat down uninvited, staring down at her with an intensity that she didn't like.

"Your neck won't bruise," he offered after a long moment. She nodded, finally looking up to meet his eyes.

"Ashkenazi?" Donny asked. She nodded. "Yiddish?"

"A little," she offered. "Not a lot. I'm out of practice."

"Where the fuck would you practice," Donny agreed, laughing at his question.

"Where in America are you from?" She asked quietly, taking a fresh bite of sweet apple.

"Boston," he said with a grin. "you know a lot about America?"

"I know about baseball, and coca-cola, and chewing gum."

She heard Aldo laugh nearby, turning back with a grin at her answer.

"That's all you'd need to know," Aldo called.

"And King Kong," she quickly added.

"He wasn't American," Donny added.

"Oh," Audrey said.

The men had fallen into a pleasant banter, enjoying their time by the campfire, chewing on rabbit and apple, making lewd jokes to one another. Donny had chatted easily at her, building a small rapport with Audrey as he saw the relief on her face to discuss her real self with another human being.

Aldo waited till everyone was fed before he finally turned his full attention to her, Donny still sat by her side.

"You think your Hans Landa saved you cause he's got humanity?" Aldo began, crouched easily in front of her. She shook her head, a shiver running her in the cool night air. Aldo whistled and one of the soldiers dropped a Nazi's coat at her feet. She stared at it but shrugged it on, hoping quietly that it wasn't too blood-stained.

"That's good," Aldo drawled. "Cause a Nazi ain't got no humanity."

She nodded in silent agreement.

"We're gonna kill as many Nazi's as we can," Aldo continued. "You got a problem with that?"

She shook her head, the image of dead Arthur spilling across her mind.

"Who you got to worry about?" Aldo asked. She stared blankly at the question. Aldo sighed to himself, tilting his head from side to side.

"Our boy Donny here's got a girl back home," Aldo begun. Donny nodded, shouting a jovial 'shut up' as the wolf whistles his fellow soldiers rained towards them. "Zimmerman has a wife, kids. Kagan has a sister, a Ma. Me? I got mountain people. Who you got?"

She looked up to see his men, watching her intently, their faces illuminated by firelight. They looked like her mother's brothers and cousins, the manly Jewish men in the pictures she had seen as a child.

She stared at the question, the crushing loneliness suddenly forcing itself up her throat.

"No one," she said, clenching her teeth. Aldo tutted his understanding, slapping a hand on her knee.

"Nazis?"

She nodded, looking away as angry tears filled her eyes. She bit hard on her injured lip, willing the pain to stay at bay.

"They don't have humanity," she said quietly.

"Well," Aldo said. "Now you got us. And we got you. And we got a plan."


	5. Chapter 5

She almost laughed aloud at the thought that it might be hard to catch Hans Landa's attention.

When she had returned to Paris she had bitten down her nail on her left ring finger worrying about it, restless in her bed at night, exhausted as she brainstormed 'natural' ways to meet Landa again. Perhaps the market? A popular cafe? Could she catch his car around a German-controlled building, follow the stream of swastika marked men, until they led her to him?

All her plans had ended in nothing when she had been dragged into the car that morning on her way to work, sat squeezed between to SS officers as the car drove her to the Hotel Lutetia.

Sat at the stainless-steel table in the windowless room, she _almost_ laughed.

She had been sat in there for two hours now, and she hadn't allowed herself to think of why she was there once. She knew how this worked. Arthur had taught her this, they starved your eyes sight and ears of sound, hoping you'd start to drag up your guilty thoughts. Do the work for them.

"_Don't think them, don't think anything_," Arthur had told her one night during a late walk around Paris. "_That's the trick_."

Aldo had trained her up throughout her night in the forest, telling her that her role was to foster a healthy interest and suspicion from the Jew Hunter. To be the pretty young orphan that she was, and to ensure that she was able to feedback to the Basterd's in a yet to be disclosed communication loop. They had simply taught her the phrase 'coca-cola king kong' and asked her to wait to hear it.

She smoothed her dress down her legs once more, looking about the room in quiet contemplation. Having no one was ultimately a freedom. No one to hold meant there was no one to hurt. No one to harm. Her heartbreak had given way to opportunity. Aldo had sat in front of her, giving an impassioned speech about the Tennessee Mountains, the fact that he and his men had been put on the 'god damn earth' to 'rid it of the foot soldiers of a Jew-hating mass-murdering maniac', and that she was allowed to join them. Not an invitation, an honour. She had nodded softly in front of the fire, finally feeling a sense of meaning, and for the first time since her parents had been murdered, a fire burned in her.

Audrey quickly blinked away the memories, reacquainting herself to the small room that held her and repeated the facts she knew to be true above all others.

She was Audrey Loewe. She had a purpose.

Audrey looked up at the opening of the door, expectantly straightening her posture for Hans Landa, but instead was greeted by a young face.

She blinked, taking him cautiously.

"Ah," he began in German, holding his cap in his hand. He was tall and blonde, looking no older than her age. "Would you… like… water….?"

"A… water?" She repeated, tilting her head carefully.

"Tea?" He offered. She let a small laugh cross her mouth.

"Tea," she repeated. He nodded. She could hear the goading calls of other young men behind him.

"A tea would be wunderbar," she said softly. "With milk. And sugar. Danke."

A brilliant smile took his face as he scampered away. She let the smile cement on hers, but her blood boiled underneath. Paris had become a stream of Nazi's attempting to flirt at her, taking in her blue eyes and blonde hair, imagining taking her home to glorious Germany. Aldo was right. They had no humanity. They'd not hesitate to put a bullet through that blonde head once the word 'Jüdisch' was uttered.

The young man had returned with the tea and had begun chatting idly with her, wasting away the minutes with pointless talk, all of which she took in with a sweet smile and an earnest nod.

How much time he spent in there with the charming Fräulein Loewe, Hans Landa did not know. Landa had returned from a meeting which had run long to find the young soldier, the son of a prominent Reich Minister, sat leisurely on the edge of the table, flirting with Audrey as though his life depended on it. Landa let his glare penetrate through the one-way glass as he watched the young man's hand reach forward and gently run his thumb across the bruise on the corner of Audrey's mouth.

Landa watched her respond with a coy blush, "_I fell, I can be clumsy_", and Landa had snorted with derision.

"Enough," Landa muttered to himself, straightening his tie before barging into the room with a fresh expression of friendly formidability. He watched the young man stumble from the desk, standing straight, yelling 'Heil' at his superior, his hand raised in the air.

"Halo Fräulein Loewe," he said. "Apologies for the delay."

"Don't apologise, Oberst Landa," she said with a soft smile. "Your Private took excellent care of me."

"I'm sure he did," Landa said, turning a quick closed-lip smile to the young man, but it never quite reached his eyes. "Go now."

He scampered from the room and Audrey softly shook her head, sipping once again from the cup in her hands.

"Tea or coffee?" Landa asked as he took his hat off, laying it on the table and sitting directly opposite her.

"Tea," she said. She looked so relaxed, so at ease, that Landa gave a fresh cold taut smile.

"Do you wish to know why you are here?" He asked, laying his hands flat on the table in front of him with a smooth movement. The same playfulness clung to his expression, masking the preciseness that lay in his gaze.

"I am sure you will tell me when you are ready," she said politely, her head dipping with a smile. A fresh twitch of a smile hit his mouth.

"Well I will cut to the chase, we've wasted enough time, haven't we Fräulein Loewe," he said, hitting the table once and a grin.

"Oh dear, I'm not trying to waste your time Herr La-"

"Nein, Nein, Nein," he tutted, interrupting her earnest response, waving his hand in front of him. "Nien. Your time Fräulein. Your time. I have brought you here to answer a simple question."

She waited expectantly, blinking prettily.

"Where is the picture of your mother?"

He had expected her to flinch but instead, she gave a soft smile, her eyes looking sad as she slowly lifted her bag to the table, searching through it for a short moment before removing the black and white picture, pushing it across the table towards him.

"I took it," Audrey said softly with a contrite expression.

"You stole from an SS officer," Landa said lightly, his finger pressing the corner of the picture.

She nodded, her eyes still focused on the black and white picture of her mother.

"I forgot what she looked like," Audrey admitted quietly. She blinked away her tears and took a deep breath. "I took it because I… I forgot."

She looked up at him, a look of sadness to her expression, but a spark of dare in her eyes.

"I'm sorry Oberst Landa, I am. I didn't mean disrespect or…" she whispered, pausing as her fingers came to softly touch the edge of the picture. "My heart got the better of me."

He paused, eyeing her carefully.

"We can't punish you for having a heart," Landa said with a fresh and easy smile. He pocketed the picture with a flourish, eyeing her with clear suspicion.

She didn't break at all, she just watched him with the same soft expression, the same flicker of rebellion in her blue eyes.

"I'll walk you out," he said.

He stood and she followed, walking beside him with an air of calm that did not belong in the Hotel Lutetia.

"Are you busy today Herr Landa?" She asked politely as she walked beside him through the industrious corridors, swarming with uniformed men. Landa watched the eyes of the men catch her, her pretty face and frame as she bounced from foot to foot beside him, but she looked only at him with polite expectation. Her heels were unfamiliar clip-clop against the hotel floors, tinkling against the loud smack of military boots and leather shoes hitting the marble. She blinked her thank you to elevator attendant as they entered the elevator.

"Very busy," he answered. She nodded, politely, looking up at the floor numbers of the golden dial, waiting patiently beside him. The elevator binged when it stopped at the busy first floor. Landa smoothly moved his hand to usher her out and she obliged with a pleasant smile.

"You are finally living up to your reports," he said softly. "The friendly and lovely young woman I have read all about."

"I just take a moment to warm up," she said amiably.

He watched her smile easily. He queried her new warmness, compared to the chilly reception he had initially gotten from her, and couldn't help but shake his head in shame. He had so looked forward to a good old fashioned game of cat and mouse with a worthy opponent. Her new friendly face jeopardised it all and he felt himself burn with disgust for it. The mysterious blonde with a tragic backstory, suddenly was nothing more than another manipulative tramp, trying to weasel her way out of France, into Germany, on the arm of a powerful man.

Boring.

And to Hans, boring was a cardinal sin.

They continued to walk down the bustling corridor, the soldiers gladly moving out of the way of their formidable Standartenführer. She flittered beside him, smiling and sweet-faced, blinking in wait for his next words.

It made him sick.

"Audrey- may I call you Audrey?" He asked, interrupting himself with the question. He saw the soft blink of surprise she gave before nodding earnestly. He smiled with a friendly tilt of his head as they continued to walk through the busy moving corridors.

"You were as cold as the winter when we first met," he said easily, sounding almost mocking. "And now you are so warm! Your charming _ents du bonheur, _always-on display in the most lovely smile when I see you. What changed Fräulein?"

She considered the question carefully, listening intently as she took quick steps to keep up with his gate.

"You know my histoire," she said in French, no longer willing to speak in German as she glanced around the corridor. The tiny act of defiance caused a fresh smile to catch Han's mouth, his eyebrows jutting in joy. "You know what my interaction with your…. colleagues…. have been."

He gave a cool nod for her to continue, pausing to stand. The rushing uniforms moved around the two of them, him an immovable and impenetrable force within his own ranks. She moved to stand in front of him, looking earnest and almost contrite.

"I should have been shot on-site when I met you," she said matter-of-factly. "Morte… or… worse…"

She carefully glanced around once more, gulping as she continued. She cleared her throat, her lips pursed. He remembered how he had found her, battered face, eyes frantic. She subconsciously touched her lip, her hand dropping back down.

"And then you should have killed Marion," she murmured so only he could hear, inching closer. "And you didn't."

She looked up, eyes soft. They were close together now, and he imagined from the outside it might almost look intimate.

"You should of," she murmured, ensuring that only he could hear her. Her hands came to softly touch the back of his. "By my every interaction with your men… you should have shot me in the head."

She finally looked up, staring at him directly with a strange devotion he had not anticipated.

"You didn't."

He gave her an easy smile, leaning in, nodding benevolently for her to continue.

"I can feel… some warmness towards this," she said simply, dropping her head to gaze up through her lashes once more. "If the trade is, a few polite, friendly interactions with you Monsieur Landa, I can oblige."

"I can very well accept this explanation," he said with an easy smile, giving her hand a quick squeeze. "Apologise for the interrogation Mademoiselle Loewe, I am not used to a friendly disposition from the people of Paris."

She nodded and went to continue walking but he did not. She paused instead to see him watched over her head, an amused smile catching his mouth, eyes filling with cruel delight.

"Ah Landa!"

She froze, and Landa watched in relish as all colour drained her face.

The SS lieutenant walked towards them, each footfall hard stomps.

She seemed momentarily frozen, her eyes fluttering, lips softly parted. He saw the breath catch in her throat with the same severity that he could have achieved with wrapping his hands around it.

"Ah, Sturmbannführer Klutch," Landa called warmly in German, throwing his hands out to the side in a smooth swoop. "What a pleasant surprise!"

Landa smiled at his fellow officer, pointedly ignoring Audrey.

"And who is this?" The voice called.

"This is Audrey Loewe," Landa said affably. "An acquaintance of mine."

She turned slowly, her back facing Landa as she took him in, he grinned lopsidedly with a bemused expression at her response.

Audrey took in his weathered face, a new scar lined across one of his cheeks since the last time she saw him. Peppers of white hair in his black mane. He still stood an imposing 6'5 feet tall, his shoulders broad, his hands rough and huge. She thought her nightmares had hardened him, but if anything she remembered him with a soft veneer. The man that stood in front of her was infinitely more terrifying than the memories. A flesh and blood nightmare, wrapped in an SS uniform.

He smirked back at her, looking over Audrey with an unhidden leer.

"Guten Morgen Fräulein Loewe," he said easily. Klutch reached and took her hand, leaning down and pushing a kiss to it.

She said nothing. Her body was frozen as she watched the interaction occur as though it were a film.

"Audrey?" Landa called carefully, feigning confusion.

"I have to go," she whispered in French, she spun, bouncing into Landa. She took a tiny stumble before darting around him. "Pardon, au revoir… ah… Auf Wiedersehen."

"Auf Wiedersehen," Klutch said, a bemused expression pressed to his scarred face.

She faltered as she walked quickly away. Landa turned his head to watch her stumble into several soldiers as she walked, utterly frenetic movement beneath her stride. Shaking his head in soft delight, he patted the Sturmbannführer shoulder.

"I'll be eine Minute," Landa chuckled, shaking his head playfully. "She is a nervös thing, you know how these French women can be."

Klutch chuckled and nodded, taking his time to extract a cigarette as he watched Landa jog after the blonde beauty.

"Audrey!" Landa called. "Un moment s'il vous plaît!"

She couldn't hear him, blood rushed her ears as she felt her breath rush in and out of her body. She could feel the panicked tears prick her eyes, her lips trembling as she pushed a hand hard to her mouth, trying to keep her emotions inside.

She jumped when his hand landed on her, a choked cry hitting from her throat. She turned a terrified glance back to him.

"Audrey-"

"I have to leave," she interrupted, voice tight and dry. "Let go."

"Non," Landa said with a wolf-like smile. "Non, you will get lost. I'll walk you out."

He dragged her to a nearby elevator, feeling the frantic beat of her pulse beneath his grip. She didn't notice him show the attendant out, she didn't notice him slide the gold gate over, trapping them alone in the moving box.

"Are you ok Madmoiselle Loewe?" Han asked, releasing his grip on her the moment the box began to slide down the elevator shaft.

"What is wrong with you?" she whispered, her voice constricted by panic and rage.

"Pardon Moi?" Hans asked, blinking a false confusion.

"Don't 'pardon moi'," she hissed, eyes ablaze. "You _know_. You know who he _is_. Why did you do-"

"Do what?" He interrupted, mocking her.

"What do you want?" She whispered quickly, looking back at him with disgust and trepidation. "What is it? What do you want from me?"

"Excuse me-"

"Is it sex?" She asked brashly, the words coming quick and unplanned. "Is it money? Is it… what is it? What do you _want_ for me?"

Landa playfully creasing his brows. "What do you mean Audrey?"

Her eyebrows furrowed, her hands trembling in front of her. Her usually carefully masked face filled with untempered consternation. It thrilled him that she would question him. Day after day people lied and lied and lied to him. Some good, some poor. Some so well crafted he viewed it with almost respect, some so pathetically put together he felt like snapping the neck of the speaker.

But she stared up at him from her diminutive frame with pure demand, her eyes doing the work of her words. He couldn't remember the last time _anyone_ questioned him.

He paused, his face still patient and looking almost confused, if not for the cruel twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Landa waited for her to cry. He had been meditating on the fact he was yet to see her tears, and a part of him now yearned for it. The thought of extracting the salty water from her was becoming an infatuation he enjoyed behind closed eyes. He watched her keenly, keeping the same befuddled expression on his face.

He let out a shocked burst of laughter when she slapped him across the face. There was a tiny moment that froze between them, the echo of her hand against his cheek tinkling on the walls. He smiled with a bemused shake of his head.

He slammed the break on the elevator, thrusting her hard against the wall behind so quickly she had no time to brace, her head banging off of it.

The golden box shuddered to a stop, trapped between floors. Unseen by prying eyes.

She looked momentarily dazed and terrified and he let another low laugh come from him.

"I want you to not act so simple," he told her, looking amused but with a tremor of rage running beneath it all. "You are insulting me, thinking I'd fall for this stupid French flirtatious act."

He watched several frantic emotions run her gaze before a hardness set her features.

"That's better," he said darkly. "As for sex…"

He pulled a quick look of disgust.

"Don't flatter yourself," he said bitingly. He watched the hardened eyes take him in, her jaw clenching.

The feral little survivor, slick with the blood of lost loved ones and hardened by hatred, surviving freezing snow, breathing barely beneath the boot of the occupation. There she was. The girl he had read about. The girl he had been searching for.

"I want you to have some respect for me," he said lowly, his voice practically a growl, his eyes looking feral and delighted. "Have some respect for _yourself_ Audrey."

She said nothing, her eyes burning into his with unmasked hatred.

"Much better," he praised darkly, lips twitching to a cruel smile once more.

His hand removed from her, and he quickly switched the elevator to move once more. It glided to the lobby, dinging open with a pleasant mundane 'bing'. Masking what had just occurred within its walls. He opened the sliding golden gate and smiled benevolently at her.

She threw herself from it, bursting through the wall of waiting soldiers, blonde hair disappearing across the beautiful marble floors of the grand hotel lobby. The men she had pushed parted, eyes following her footsteps as Landa watched her move quickly, doing her best to stop herself from breaking into a run.

"Adieu Audrey!" He called with a bright smile, waving his hand above his head with an almost cartoonish enthusiasm.

He watched her eyes dart back at her name, icy detestation running through her blue gaze. Her head flicked away as she pushed out of the doors, disappearing out into the bright day, her blonde hair bleeding into the burning sunlight rushing through the open doors.

Landa smoothed his hair down, moving back into the elevator with an easy smirk.

He would break down Fräulein Loewe, and then he would be the one to break her neck.


	6. Chapter 6

Audrey had taken to the bed when she arrived home, devastated that she had had the lips of the man who had destroyed her life on her skin. She couldn't fathom the calculated cruelness that Hans Landa ran through his mind. He had orchestrated it simply to see her react, thrilled to watch her panic, squirming beneath his boot. She had acted so brashly, her slap could have easily cost her her life, but it wasn't about her life. If he wanted her dead he could come to her apartment at any time, rap the door with a flourish, and then wrap his hands around her neck, strangling her to death in her own hallway. He hadn't. It had all been a delightful experiment by him, a hypothesis in an attempt to scratch the veneer she wore while in his presence. She thought she was smart, but she realised with dawning dread that she wasn't. She had underestimated him to her own detriment, and she felt a cool fury at herself for doing so.

Her conversations with The Basterd's ran through her mind. She should be friendly but not too friendly, interesting but not too interested. Never let him see you scared, never let him fluster you. Keep him involved. Keep him engaged. Keep your cool.

Instead, she had slapped him across the face in the middle of the SS headquarters of Paris.

Audrey buried her head against her pillow with a long sigh. It didn't matter now. She wouldn't need to be on high alert for 'coca cola king kong'. No. She was sure she had destroyed any chance of her espionage.

She heard the knock at the door at 8.50 pm. She was in her pyjamas already, images flowered in her mind of her being dragged down to the Hotel Letitie in her night things, perhaps put to the firing squad. The knock issued again. She tensed in her bed and finally screwed her courage to the sticking place, tentatively walking down the hall to open the door.

Doctor Oscar Clément stood in her doorway. Tall and tanned, with curling hair and hazel eyes, he gave her a cheeky grin. He stood in his fashionable clothes, looking every bit the scholar and junior doctor that he was. He had been a naturalised citizen of Marion's apartment, a brash and brave young man, pitching in here and there to help the resistance.

"Bonne Nuit Audrey," he said with a wide smile. "How are you?"

"You can't be here," she uttered flatly.

"Why, you have company?" he asked, looking thrilled at the prospect that he had maybe caught the cold and distant Audrey Loewe with a lover. He'd seen her in the corner of his eye on his many visits, her beautiful but utterly unapproachable face and figure a common feature of Arthur's home. He once had asked if she was seeing anyone and Arthur had snorted out a laugh, shaking his head in disapproval.

"They're watching the house," she whispered, increasingly agitated. "Oscar, they would have seen you come up-"

"They? Oh... 'they'…. hmm, ok, so, tell them we are sleeping together-"

"If you leave after curfew they will arrest you."

"You are sounding paranoid," he tutted playfully. "Audrey, that isn't like you to fall for that nonsense."

He barged past her, grinning with overflowing charm. She flinched with panic, locking the door behind her with a long exhale.

She turned to look at him, her gaze exhausted, but he was already gone, disappeared into the house. She followed the sound of knocking, finding him in Arthur's bedroom, bent-down and tapping the skirting board.

"Oscar-"

"Shh."

He continued, knocking and pausing, knocking and pausing, knocking-

A hollow sound emanated from the wood.

"Ah," he grinned. "Bingo."

He pried it away and behind sat papers, hiding in a compartment dug into the wall.

He pulled them out, stuffing it into his coat pocket. He placed back the skirting board and stood with a hop, grinning gregariously at her.

"And plenty of time to spare!" He said, glancing his watch as he swept down to kiss her cheek.

She looked anxiously upon him but followed him out the front door, snatching her coat as she went, pulling it over her shoulders as she ran down the stairs after him. She couldn't keep up with his lean long legs, sweeping him effortlessly ahead of her. She burst out onto the street, padding quickly in a fruitless attempt to grab him.

"Oscar!" she called out.

"It's ok Audrey!" He called back, head turned while he smiled warmly at her. "You worry too much!"

She hurried forward, her bare-feet freezing against the pavement.

"Oscar," she called once more, the frustration evident in her voice. He spun around once more, walking backwards with spread wide arms, grinning softly.

"Adieu Audrey-"

"My feet are cold, come back here," she called loudly, looking grumpy.

He laughed, and paused, nodding softly as he bounded back to her.

She didn't let her eyes rest on the silent car at the end of the street, peaking from around the corner. It's black sheen shining beneath a street lamp. She looked for less than a second before turning her full attention to Oscar.

"Come back inside," she said as he reached her, looking up at him softly.

He tilted his head, looking down at the pretty Luxembourgish girl.

"I'm fine, you worry, you've always worried," he said. She raised her hand to rest it softly on his coat lapel.

"It's not worry..." she said quietly, fluttering a soft look at him.

"Well, what is it?" he asked, suspicion in his tone.

"I get lonely," she said quietly, looking up through her lashes. "Come back inside."

He looked confused until she leant up on her tippy-toes, pulling him down by the lapel of his coat and kissing him softly. He was momentarily still, surprised, before folding her into his arms, hands running down her back, into her hair.

"Come inside," she whispered against his lips.

He didn't need to be asked twice, kissing her in swoops as he stumbled her backwards to the building, lifting her while playfully shouting "Let's get your feet off the ground." She laughed loudly, sighing when his lips kissed her neck. Her legs wrapped his waist, her arms around his neck as her fingers wrapped into his curling hair. He kissed her softly, stumbling up the footpath.

His feet fell back into the lobby at 8.59 pm.

She kissed him the whole way up the stairs, never breaking appearances for nosey neighbours or hiding eyes. When they reached the front door, he set her down, and she idly pushed it open. She pulled him in by his coat, kissing him once more.

The moment the door snapped shut behind her she pushed him away from her.

Oscar looked shocked, blinking in surprise at her sudden turn.

"You're an _idiot_," she hissed, eyes furious. "There was an SS staff car right outside. They would have followed you and the moment it turned nine they would have caught you, and whatever is in your pocket, for breaking curfew."

Oscar's initial irritation faded to embarrassment, before turning to disbelief.

"Why would an SS staff car be outside your building?" He asked dubiously.

"Because one of them has taken an interest in me," she muttered, quickly walking to the living room. "You'll have to stay here till the morning-"

"Audrey… you're not… are you?" He stuttered awkwardly.

She paused, turning slowly to him. They stood facing one another and she pointed a hateful gaze to him.

"No," she said icily. "I'm not."

Oscar nodded, looking apologetic as he let out a light cough.

"What are those papers?" She asked, ignoring his awkward expression.

Oscar paused, watching her nervously.

"Why?"

She blinked, considering him with agitation.

"Because they're in my walls-"

"They're in Arthur's walls-"

"Arthur is dead."

The two stood in silence. She saw the pain cross his face before he crushed it, turning his gaze from her, the burning intensity of expression too much to take.

"If I wanted you caught by the SS, I would have let you be caught by the SS," she whispered, eyes narrowing. "I lost my parents at their hands so if you are daring to suggest that I would turn my back on you all for those _monsters_-"

"You're right," Oscar interrupted, dropping his eyes. "Sorry, Audrey… I'm sorry, you don't deserve that from me."

He looked down at her and sighed softly.

"You've lived it," he murmured, a blush catching his cheeks. "I should know better."

She nodded, eyes still firm. She dipped her hand into his coat and removed the papers, unfolding them and glancing at what was inside.

Papers for an 11-year-old boy. She looked at them carefully. They were perfectly made, the young boy staring forward from a black and white photo.

"He's under the floorboards at a friend's apartment," Oscar said quietly. "We'll get him out, cross the border to Spain. We have agents, resources. Get him to safety…. Like people did for you."

"No one did that for me," Audrey corrected quietly, eyes still focused on the papers in her hand. "I got myself to Paris. I did it."

She snapped it closed with a sigh, nodding softly to herself.

"I'm sorry-"

"I was 19," Audrey interrupted. "I was…this is different. This I child... It's fine."

She turned away, running her fingers through her hair as she tried to think, blocking out his agonised gaze for a moment.

"Hide them again," she murmured methodically, clearly ticking through an ever-evolving plan. "We will figure something out tomorrow... They'll search when you leave in the morning. Tell them we slept together, that I'm lonely. Let them catch you. Act dumb."

Oscar hesitated but finally nodded, leaving the room to hide the papers once more. She walked quietly around the living room, hands coming to rub the bridge of her nose. She didn't have time for this. She was hiding enough from Landa, she didn't need this on top of everything else. She curled on the sofa and rubbed her eyes, trying to drown out the competing fears and plans and concerns and lies.

She heard Oscar return, his footsteps accompanied by clinking. She glanced up to see him holding a bottle of wine in his hand and two mugs in the other.

"Where did you get that?" She asked in confusion.

"Arthur hid it under his bed," Oscar said. "For emergencies."

She relaxed, gladly taking a mug of it with a warm smile.

They had sat together on the sofa, drinking and talking, Audrey allowing herself to smile softly at his stories, enjoying his company for the moment. He was funny and charming, and she noted even to her embarrassment that she bit her lip while he was speaking at one point, her hand coming up to play with her hair. Before the feelings could float up any further, she had bid him bonne nuit, kissing his cheek softly.

She heard him rattle about the house but the sound of another body was a welcome distraction. She laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling, allowing her gaze to soften and herself to doze in and out of consciousness.

His soft knock awoke her, and she looked up to see him peering through a crack in the door.

"Are you ok?" She asked, sitting up with a yawn. He nodded awkwardly, worrying his lip.

"It's silly but…" he begun, opening the door further.

"What is?" She asked sleepily.

"It's Arthur's bed," he muttered. Her face softened in understanding. "I know it's… stupid… but…"

"It's ok," Audrey said with a fresh yawn. "It's not stupid."

"And I'm too tall for the sofa…" he said, looking nervous.

She edged over without thought, throwing the blankets back as she settled down on the left side of the bed. He padded across and slid into bed, laying on his back, making no attempt to touch her.

They lay in silence in the dark for some time, Audrey already feeling sleep begin to drag her under once more.

"Audrey?"

"Oui?"

"Was it true, what you said earlier?"

"Was what true?" She asked drowsily, eyes closed, her body sunk against the mattress.

"Do you really get lonely?"

The question hung between them for a long moment, silence covering the room.

"Of course," she finally replied with a tired sigh.

She felt him shift and she opened her eyes to see him laying facing her, his nose a few inches from hers.

"How do you cope?"

He seemed genuinely curious, eyes shining in the dark.

"With them I take delight in weal, and seek relief in woe; and while I understand and feel how much to them I owe," she murmured gently, eyes fluttering closed.

"Is that a prayer?" He whispered. A breath of laughter ran from her lips.

"Robert Southey," she corrected kindly.

He tutted his understanding and she opened her eyes, smiling affectionately at him.

"One must keep going," she whispered, allowing the silence to cover them in a false sense of safety.

It was a long and comfortable silence until Oscar hesitantly spoke once more.

"Arthur thought you were amazing," he utterly quietly, watching her carefully, his eyes suddenly very serious. Audrey was silent, watching her acquaintance carefully.

She couldn't respond, eyes shining in the dark.

"He didn't tell me much, it's yours to tell," he whispered. "But he thought you were incredible. Sometimes, when it got tough, he said we had to do it because of people like you."

"I annoyed him-"

"He loved you," Oscar interrupted. "Like family. He truly loved you."

Audrey nodded against the pillow, paused by his confession.

They lay in silence, face to face, unable to think of anything to say in the dark.

"I don't want you to feel lonely," he finally said, sounding somewhere between heartbroken and embarrassed at such a confession. She let a very sad smile line her lips. She leant forward, softly kissing him in the dark, her hand laying across his cheek.

"The world is a lonely place Oscar," she whispered. He had embraced her, pulling her against his chest. She let him, allowing herself to feel warmed and less alone for at least a night.

If only for a moment in the dark.


	7. Chapter 7

There are a few different ways to lie.

There is the outlandish route. It would include hyperbole, a fun twist, perhaps a few laughs escaping the listener. An admittance by both parties that the entertaining nature of the lie was more important than telling the truth. A game of bluff, that no one would so garishly lie in such a manner.

There is with a pure earnestness. This included wide eyes and trembling lips, often with a soft girlish expression. Maybe holding hands with the listener. This tactic was dangerous, as it would bleed the truth at the first poke.

Desperation was another. Sometimes said through tears, maybe even screamed in anguish. Emotion would cloud the message, communicating more than words can. Best done with men afraid of a woman's sobs.

The omission was always a good choice. A lie without a lie. practically a truth.

But if Audrey had learnt anything in her years of being a false representation of herself, it was that lying was best done when it held hands with the truth. A lie which is so intrinsically grafted upon the truth, that its roots will eventually grow into the truth, that even the most skilled detective would have difficulties unstitching it apart.

"So how do you know him?"

The distinctive click of the golden cigarette case hit against the walls of the black staff car. She glanced to see him thrust one at her and she took it from him, leaning forward as he lit it for her. Her blonde hair curtained her face for only a moment before she sat back and took a long exhale.

"Arthur."

True.

"And why did I see him leave your home with you this morning?" Landa asked conversationally, leaning to tap the ash out of the thin gap in the window.

"Why do you think?"

The short answer caused a curl of a smile to flicker upon Landa's face.

"Company?"

No response. She stared forward, inhaling once more and blowing a thin line of smoke forward. She further wrapped her plain coat around her, sighing through her nose as she turned her pretty face to watch out the window.

"He seemed upset for me to snatch you from him," Landa said with a playful pout and a low rumble of a laugh at his observation.

She glanced across to him, her legs crossed in front of her as she mirrored him as they tapped their cigarette out of the car window. She looked very fashionable in her work uniform. Crisp clean lines on a simple black and white outfit. Trousers were certainly daring but he supposed incredibly fashion-forward. She had a tape measure about her neck, looking every part the talented seamstress he knew her to be.

Landa had had his men rip her away from Oscar so roughly the young Doctor had shouted out, eyes wide in panic. Audrey had looked unmoved as she was pressed up against his car by a particularly aggressive Private named Wolfe, who now sat in the passenger seat at the front of the car. His driver Herrman had searched Oscar without success and Wolfe had shoved Audrey into the car with such force she had tripped and fallen into Hans Landa's lap. She had looked up slowly, hands splayed on his thighs before setting herself up with a helpful if not aggressive tug of her coat performed by Private Wolfe.

Oscar didn't even have time to call her name as the car sped away. Landa had watched him stood, wide-eyed and terrified, on the pavement from the rearview mirror.

"I think he likes you more than you like him," Landa teased, a fresh grin catching his mouth.

"I'm sure that's true," she responded, a fresh stream of smoke leaving her painted mouth. "Men are often like that."

Another truth.

"He left in a hurry the first time," Landa prompted. She said nothing, eyes forward and cold.

"Are we going to the Hotel Lutetia, Oberst?" She asked lightly. Important to change the topic as naturalistically as possible when the line of questioning strayed into uncomfortable areas.

"Nein," he responded, thrilled that she was agreeing to converse in German. He liked the audience of the two soldiers in the front seats of the car. He had felt a small thrill when Wolfe's hands had come down on her already bruised collarbone. The half moment of a flinch that hit her face made him fizz with excitement. "I'm driving you to work."

She said nothing for a long moment before looking out the window once more.

"Danke."

He chuckled once more. The low, slow-moving roll of sound leaving his chest and coating her.

"Actually, I picked you up for this," he said easily, holding out his sleeve to her. She observed it for a moment with a small frown. The threading had come loose at the hem of his shirt, the cuff needed redoing entirely. Not an inch of fabric was pulled on damaged, only the thread was gone. Audrey wondered if he had painstakingly unpicked the thread himself or if he had ordered one of the young men in the front of the car to do so.

"Aren't you Nazi's trained to do your own sewing?" She asked with a small furrow of her brow. That caused a spark of laughter to leave Landa.

"Ja, ja," he said. "Appearances are important to us."

"Us?"

The accusation hung between them and she saw a nasty smile twitch his lips once more, his eyes flashing dark for a moment.

"I doubt I am as good with a needle and thread as you are, fräulein," he said easily, the darkness evaporating as soon as it had arrived.

"And you have no other shirts to wear?" She asked, still carefully considering the pristine fabric.

"I don't like to leave loose threads, pardon the expression," he said with a fresh, genial smile. She was learning quickly that Hans Landa was a man loved to create a false sense of security by being friendly. He had a fiercesome and violent reputation and she was sure that lots of his victims had been shocked to meet the affable and calm Nazi officer. She imagined their confusion, the thoughts that perhaps the whispers had overblown his reputation, or that it was all untruthful propaganda. How could this charming man be the violent sadist that they had heard of? She wondered if he gave them a lot of time to correct these thoughts when he drained the life out of them.

They arrived and Landa had once again raised a characteristic hand to stop her with his now familiar 'ah ah ah', walking around the car to open the door. She hated that he did it. As though stopping her from running, draining away the fantasy of sprinting away. She wasn't dumb enough to think that he would outright ask her why Oscar had come, then left, then been chased back into the house. Not at first at least. She knew men like Hans Landa. They were smart and sly. They knew you catch more flies with honey.

This morning, he was sickly sweet.

She had walked behind him into the atelier, agitated that he knew the way into her work and didn't have the decency to pretend that he didn't.

Monsieur Brodeur had practically fallen over himself to get to Landa, his hand shooting forward to shake the Nazi Officers with a wild grin. Audrey grimaced lightly at the display of gaucheness Brodeur presented. He had hounded them all for weeks to get the Nazi's to start using their services. He didn't see atrocity, he saw auspiciousness. An almighty franc sat above all else. Audrey had viewed him with cool fury and quietly murmured 'it's rare that the chicken's let the fox into the henhouse', to which Monsieur Brodeur had shot her a withering look and docked her pay.

"Monsieur Landa," he greeted as if they were old drinking buddy. "You have met our très magnifique Audrey Loewe."

"Oui," Landa responded. "She is going to help with my sleeve- complimentary I assume?"

"Bien sûr!" Monsieur Brodeur said, hands fluttering away any imaginary offer to pay.

"Is he always so common?" Landa asked in German.

"Ja," Audrey responded, shrugging off her coat and hanging it in the corner before shrugging on the white coat on the station in the back of the large workroom. She stood patiently, her hands clasped in front of her as she looked to the tall stool nearby. Landa walked slowly, sitting easily and holding out the hem for her.

She looked ethereal as the sunlight, the beautiful light illuminating her blonde hair about her like a halo. She had helped him from his jacket and carefully hung it over a nearby bare dress form. Audrey didn't speak to him once, instead, she focused on her work, quickly matching a thread to the boring brown of Hans Landa's shirt. She held his arm up with gentle touch, her eyes focused upon the hem with such precision he wondered if she had forgotten who it was attached to.

"Do I have to leave it on?" He asked curiously. She nodded, threading a needle with expert skill.

"Oui," she answered. "I have to check your movement to make sure it is just right."

"I knew you were good," he said calmly as she began to sew the sleeve.

She was delicate but precise with each stitch, and he noted with a smile that she was able to even keep the holes the previous thread had left. She lifted his arm once more. Audrey sat on her little stool and she looked even more petite than usual. Her hands looked dainty against him and he smiled softly. He could crush her with his bare hands if he wanted to.

"Do you have a bruise?"

She paused mid stitch, eyes fluttering upward to him.

"Excusez-moi?" she asked quietly.

"When Private Wolfe grabbed you this morning, you winced. Did I leave a bruise?" he asked casually, smiling calmly upon her. She considered what he asked for a long moment, face impassive.

"Oui," she responded, returning to her work.

"Someone less forgiving would be tempted to stab me with that needle fräulein Loewe," he asked, purposefully speaking in German. He saw her bristle at the code switch.

"Someone stupid perhaps," she responded quietly.

He laughed so loudly that she saw her colleagues jump in her peripheral vision, all swivelling terrified glances.

"Pardon!" Landa called out in French. "Forgive me!"

"S'il vous plaît Colonel Landa," Monsieur Brodeur called with a nervous smile. "Nothing to apologise for."

"She is remarkably funny, you didn't say she was funny!" He called back. Monsieur Brodeur nodded feverishly in agreement.

"Oui," he called. "She is a whimsical, non?"

"Oui," Landa agreed, turning his grin back to her.

"Someone stupid indeed," he agreed in German, turning his full attention back to her. "But you aren't stupid, are you fräulein Loewe?"

"Nein," she agreed softly as she continued her work upon his sleeve.

"So, why did Oscar leave and return last night?" he asked. She looked up slowly, hands paused in mid-air.

"I asked him to come back inside," she said.

"And why did he come in the first place?" he asked, his voice laced with pleasantness.

"He was trying to find something Arthur said he had left, in a cavity in a wall," she said. Landa lightly raised his eyebrow at her candour.

"Oh?" he asked. "What was he looking for?"

"He didn't know," she said. "He was seeing one of those girls you took, I assume she is dead?"

Landa nodded casually, as though discussing the weather.

"And she said there's this cavity, and Oscar was, curious I suppose," Audrey said calmly.

"And pray tell fräulein Loewe, what did he find?" Landa asked.

"Nothing," she said. "You can come by my home Herr Landa, I'll show you it myself."

He considered what she was saying, finding it equally highly likely and unlikely. He watched her as she continued to sew once more, eyes trained with that singular objective once more.

"And why did you chase him back in?" He asked. He smiled wolfishly when she paused again with a small sigh. She looked up slowly again, hands paused. He smiled to feel the weight of her fingers upon his wrist.

"Why do you think?" She asked.

He smiled coyly, shrugging, his other hand coming to offer his palm to the sky as if he were overcome with confusion.

"Who do I have in this world, Herr Landa?" She asked quietly.

He stared at her for a moment.

"Marion?"

"She doesn't remember me," Audrey corrected calmly. "Who do I have in this world?"

He stayed silent at her question. His silence was the answer.

"Sometimes I get very lonely," she said softly, her eyes steady to his. "It can be overwhelming. Oscar was there, and he is always very nice to me, Herr Landa."

He watched her and waited for the flicker to reach her eyes. To spot the bluff against the blue of her gaze. He was an expert at spotting a lie but the shadow of guilt or doubt or deception never reached her expression. She looked wan and tired and bored. But she didn't look like she was lying.

"Lonely," he repeated. She said nothing before returning to his sleeve. He watched her calmly finish her work, smoothing the fabric with a finishing flourish.

She sat back and looked up at him expectantly. He raised his sleeve and examined her precise and perfect work with a small, impressed smile.

"My my Audrey," he said, almost cooing at her. "You are very talented, aren't you?"

"Merci," she said, waiting calmly for his next instruction. He threw his hand back at his jacket and she stood smoothly, getting it for him and helping him put it back on. She swiftly stepped back as he stood, her lower back pressed to the ledge by the window. The morning light shined about her and she looked saintlike.

"I will be around to check this hole in the wall," he told her calmly. "Merci for your workmanship Mademoiselle Loewe."

"You are welcome Colonel Landa," she said. "Please attend at any time that is convenient for yourself."

He left after shaking the cloying hand of Monsieur Brodeur. Audrey had been praised by Broiduer, his hand on her shoulder as she attended back to her existing work. She had ignored him and instead worked in silence and isolation for the whole day. She stayed well after all others had left, sat alone in the lamplight of the dark and cold atelier. She waited till 8 o'clock to take off her white coat, hanging it on the dress form and picking up her coat. She took it to the middle of the room, making sure she couldn't be seen from the window. She carefully unstitched the collar and deftly removed the papers from its starched collar. She held the papers in her hand, heavy and important despite their delicate white paper. The young boy in the picture stared at her and she sighed softly, closing her eyes for a moment.

"_Merde_," she whispered to herself, swallowing carefully as she lay the papers on the table in front of her. She clasped her hands in front of her, resting her forehead on her knuckles.

She searched the floor of the atelier till she found a loose floorboard by a far window, pressed against the skirting board. She wrenched it up before carefully wrapping the papers in spare material to protect them from dust and damp. She hid them with reverent fingertips, laying the floorboard precisely, ensuring it looked as in place as possible.

She sat on the floor for a long moment, trying her best to quell the drowning panic.

She restitched her coat collar until it was perfect once more and sighed out once more. She shrugged it back on before making her way home.

Hans Landa was right. She wasn't stupid, but she didn't need to be a genius.

She just had to be smart enough to not get caught.


	8. Chapter 8

Morning Sunday prayer in the packed Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris was one of the few times a week Audrey felt peaceful.

She did not believe in God. She had determined that aged 13 years old that if there was a God, his benevolence often led to cruelty, and she wasn't sure she would even want to worship a cruel God, even if that cruelness was coincidental. At aged 19, drenched in her parent's blood, sat in the cargo hold of a train, she had determined that she didn't believe in God at all.

But prayer was peaceful and her perfectly presented picture of a practising-but-not-quite-perfect Catholic surely looked a lot less Jewish than the blood that ran through her veins.

She kept her head bowed throughout, only looking up to grant the sign of peace to those around her. She carefully shook each of their hands, smiling warmly and uttering 'peace be with you' to each stranger's face. The last hand that took hers pressed an unfamiliar feeling to her palm and she glanced up. The man, who looked strangely familiar, offered her the sign of peace and she smiled and replicated it, smoothly folding her hand back to herself, holding whatever the stranger had passed and pressing it into her pocket.

She left the scrap of paper be, hiding away in the confessional to read it after the swapping of sacred prayers and passages. She had considered going home with it but reconsidered when she imagined yet another unplanned and unwanted tête-à-tête with Hans Landa appearing, his fingers in her pockets, prying out something that could potentially get a bullet lodged into her brain. She frowned politely in the darkened box, reconsidering morbidly that Hans Landa would probably prefer to strangle her. She pulled the paper from her pocket and tentatively opened it, holding it against her palms

One side, in neatly printed black ink, read 'coca-cola king kong'. She felt a small smile twitch her lips. She turned it, eyes peering through the dark at it.

'Church Saint-Denys-of-the-Sacrament. 8 pm. Burn after reading.'

She folded the paper slowly and willed calm to press her features. Her head lay back against the oak of the confessional and she sighed softly. The mass had predominantly been about the idea of service, the idea that one's life is not one's own, instead it belongs to a higher purpose and power. She queried to herself in the darkness that life's length should matter less when service is greater. She had no one now, and if she had no one, living life felt less and less important. She could instead, do something important. Something with a greater purpose than her own.

She quelled the fear and excitement and terror and pride that roared in her until she looked impassive once more. She exited the confessional without incident and walked to the unpopulated prayer candles. She lit one, carefully and quietly burning down the scrap of paper without witness.

She had waited in Marion's apartment until 7.50 pm to walk to the Church Saint-Denys-du-Saint-Sacrement. Despite her normal place of prayer being Notre-Dame, she had visited the smaller church on a few occasions in her life, and it wouldn't look out of place for her to be caught there, praying quietly to herself. She had to hand it to The Basterds, it was a very clever rendezvous.

She could see the unidentified man from the church walking slowly towards her down the street as she finally she recognised him as Gerold Hirschberg. She let a tiny smile touch her lips as he walked towards the church, but he did not enter. Instead, he walked straight passed her, bumping into her with a hard shoulder as he passed.

"Tail at 6 O'clock," he muttered before walking away nonchalantly. She didn't look back, instead, she called out an inconspicuously called 'excusez-moi!' before continuing to the church alone.

She felt the rage burn her as she went. Hans Landa's constant attention was stifling suffocation she could do without, but at least she hadn't been caught with an American in a church. She would tell him she was praying for Marion and the sin of her night with Oscar. She'd say it bitterly and quietly, ensuring that he would once again believe her.

She settled into a vacant pew within the empty church close to the alter. She glanced up once before kneeling, wrapping her hands to prayer in front of her as she closed her eyes and dropped her head, ensuring her mind wrap against the unplanned whisper to God, making it look as realistic as she possibly could.

She heard is slow and unbothered footsteps echo the church as he entered, but she kept her head bowed. She only looked up when his footsteps stopped at her pew, an almost smile pressed to her face.

Her breath left her entirely at the sight of him.

He smirked cruelly, observing her with a keen interest that made her bones cold.

"Fräulein Loewe," he said slowly, his accent thick and distinctive. "How could I forget you?"

She said nothing, her lip trembling at the face of the man who had killed her entire family.

Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Klutch stared down at her with calm cruelty that made her blood freeze in her veins. The two stared one another down for a long moment, Audrey's chest heaving as she tried to squash the screaming panic roaring inside of her.

"I apologise for it," he said casually, as though sharing a joke between old friends. "Rude…. but I remember you now."

She didn't speak, her eyes swelling with panic. She glanced behind her, desperately looking for the amused face of Hans Landa, but she saw nobody. She was alone in the vacuous hall with a man who had slain her entire parents.

"Hans Landa doesn't know who you are Audrey."

He was calm and relaxed in his demeanour, answering her unasked question of where Hans Landa was.

"He does," she replied, her voice tight.

"Does he know your mother is Jewish?"

"She wasn't-"

Klutch interrupted her with a harsh laugh.

"She was," he said brutally. "Someone in your pitiful piss-puddle of a village told me after I'd let you go in the snow. I thought you'd died out there Audrey, but you didn't. Here you are, a woman! No wonder I didn't recognise you, you've grown up so much! But how do you think the Standartenführer will react when he finds out that I let a Jüdisch go?"

"I'm not-"

"**STOP LYING**."

She froze, terrified to see his face suddenly feral.

"I was merciful to you Audrey," he continued, swallowing his rage for a moment. "That was a mistake… we cannot have mercy for the Jüdisch."

He slowly undid his belt, sliding it from him, letting it hang from his hand.

"Hans will kill you," she whispered, her throat dry.

"Nein fräulein," he said with a heavy sigh, smiling with a shake of his head. "I'll kill you. And Hans will never find out."

She scrambled up the pew but he snatched her hair, dragging her into the aisle with ease.

She kicked out, but he punched at her, her lip splitting beneath his ring. She cried out, her mouth filling with her own blood, her teeth cutting the inside of her cheek after his blow.

She scratched and shrieked, fighting him until he threw her down by the alter. Her body bouncing off of it, her temple cracking to the floor. His boot thrust into her side, her breath being kicked out of her. He kicked her again, her body turning against the earth.

The next hit to her stomach forced out a strangled cry. He stood over her, leaning down. She scratched out at his hands, but he gripped her throat firmly and vicelike, punching her once more against her swelling cheek in an effort to subdue her.

"Please," she coughed, fresh blood filling her mouth. He stepped away for a moment, watching her try to push herself upwards, blood dripping from her lips and on to the carpet.

She attempted to stand but he kicked her down, her wrist twisting beneath her.

"You should have died in that forest Audrey," Klutch called out. "This is just fate returning to claim what it's owed."

She scrambled back as he linked the belt through itself. He sighed heavily, looking disappointedly down at her.

"Such a gorgeous thing," he told her, his long steps matching her desperate scrambling. "Such a shame."

He grabbed her hair, dragging her upwards. She scratched at him, he slapped her hands away, but she was too frantic. Her nails sunk into his wrist and he yelled out, cursing her and kicking at her once more.

He snatched her arm and her body swung as he dropped the belt, grabbing at his coat. She was kicking and scratching, eyes wild as he dragged his knife from its sheath. She watched his hand swing back, but her hand swung out to protect her. The blade dragged down her palm, the blood immediately pouring from the fresh wound. He swung his arm back again, but she kicked out, hitting his hand, the knife cutting at her ankle. He dropped it with a curse, punching at her once more. She sobbed out, her hands dropping to her bleeding skin. He acted quickly, his hand snatching the belt loop and pulling it forcefully over her head. She tried to scream but suddenly there wasn't any air to scream with.

He kicked her down, boot to her sternum as he pulled hard on the belt loop. She scratched at his leg, her eyes wide as she kicked out, her hands snatching at the twitching belt being held in the air. It became slick with her blood, her hands slipping. She dropped her hands and desperately tried to pull at the leather cutting into the skin. He was speaking to her, but she couldn't hear him against the deafening silence of her own tongue, silenced by the lack of air coming through her throat. She could feel the prickles of unconsciousness beginning to fill her view, the screaming lack of blood beating against her eardrums as her body took over. She flailed and one of her knees came up and connected with his leg, making him buckle. The pressure slacked for only a second, but it was enough. She pulled the belt away from her neck, ducking from the loosened loop and ran across the room, snatching a candlestick from the alter as she went.

Klutch caught the back of her coat, she tumbled back, but thrust herself forward, turning and hitting him with the candlestick. It drew blood against his cheek as he roared out, releasing her once more. She dashed, bursting from the door.

She dropped the candlestick as she ran, blinded and terrified as she began to desperately race, skidding down a nearby alleyway, blood rushing in her ears, tears running down her cheeks. She could hear him screaming her name. She wanted to scream too, but fear suffocated her, knowing that death would catch her if she did.

A hand snatched her arm, a palm pressing her mouth to smoother the scream, pulling her clean from the alleyway and inside an abandoned building. She stood pressed against the stranger, silent and terrified, ears pricked for Klutch's footsteps. The stranger peered around, and she glanced to see the calm face of Hirschberg, his hand releasing her arm as he pressed his finger to his lips. She nodded softly in understanding as he let go, his hand releasing her as he retrieved his gun, silently moving his body in front of hers. They stood in the darkness of the abandoned shop, willing not even breath to make noise. They heard the scuffle of boots, cursing in German at the top of the alleyway, until silence touched once more, the fearsome monster's footsteps taking him away from them once again.

They had stood in silence for what felt like an eternity until Hirschberg peered out the window, finally nodded and gave the all-clear.

Her shoulders slumped, a long exhale releasing.

"You know him?" Hirschberg asked. She nodded, swallowing thickly. It tasted like blood and saliva and it turned her stomach. Her split lip oozed against her teeth, as she pulled her lower lip against them, trying to stop the bleeding.

They stood in quietness, Hirschberg watching her intently for a long moment. She was a mess, smeared in her own blood, thin red lines dribbling from her defensive wounds. A gash lay along her left palm, an angry red strap that surrounded her neck. Her lip was split, a huge red mark across her chin, cheek, and temple. Either from a punch or a fall, or both, he couldn't quite tell. He could see fingerprint marks against her wrists. Bloodstained her right ankle and her shoe. She was holding her left side firmly, her body slightly caved to protect it. Her injuries looked frenzied, and he watched her watch him in the dark, just as unsure of what to do next.

"What did he do?" Hirschberg finally asked.

"He just beat me," she uttered with bitter relief. "If that's what you're asking."

Hirschberg nodded.

"Ribs?"

She nodded, wincing as she moved her hand away.

"Hand?"

The blood from her hand was already stained against her coat as she grabbed a chunk of material in an attempt to stem the bleeding. She nodded.

"Should you go home?" Hirschberg asked. She stilled, her hazy mind thinking of what to do next.

"I…" she began slowly. "No. He will know where I live."

"Hospital, friends?" Hirschberg responded. She shook her head minutely once more, the small tussle of blonde hair falling across her cheeks.

"The same," she responded. She felt woozy, the adrenaline wearing down, the pain grew stronger.

"Hirschberg," she whispered, suddenly panicked. "He knows I'm Jewish."

He said nothing, taking in the information with a cold contemplation.

"We will deal with that," he finally said. "You focus on what you need to do."

She stood in silence until Hirschberg suddenly took her bag from her, lifting the strap over her head. She was mildly surprised it had stayed on her body during the chaos, almost laughing as he searched through it.

She was amused until he found what he was looking, holding it up for her to see.

"No," she said, shaking her head flatly. "No, no, no-"

"Who else?" He asked.

"He sent him-" She began but Hirschberg shook his head.

"He does his own dirty work," Hirschberg said. She froze at that sentence.

"He didn't know that he was coming for you," Hirschberg said. She knew that Hirschberg wasn't sure either, trying to convince himself too, but he was right. Where else was she supposed to go?

They both stared at the card until she reached out and took it, leaving a bloody fingerprint on the corner.

"He'll be interested," Hirschberg muttered.

They let it hang between them, once again, both not sure they were right. Both trying to convince themselves otherwise.

She had sat curled to herself in the corner, Hirschberg refusing to treat any of her wounds.

"You need to look untouched Audrey," he had muttered. She had agreed, her eyes betraying her hurt despite the fact she knew he was right.

She had waited another hour until curfew commenced. If she was picked up by a Nazi patrol she could hand her card to them, look lost and scared and soft. Big blue eyes, trembling pink lips.

She had once heard Hans Landa's authority referred to as 'unquestionable'. She hoped that was true. She hoped the tiny scrap of white paper in her fingers was unquestionable as well.

Hirschberg had held back and watched her disappear out of the alleyway. As soon as his eyes were no longer on her, she felt a frisson of terror run her. Who could possibly guarantee this would work? She would find Landa, perhaps? But what if Klutch found her first? Finished the job? What if Hellstrom, or some other hell hound of the Nazi Party smelt her blood? She swallowed that fear, focusing on walking quickly in the open streets, desperately trying to attract some kind of attention as she limped through cobblestones, desperate for someone to look upon her.

She kept her eyes down, her gate purposeful. She didn't want to look like a victim. But as time poured forward, so did the fatigue. The pain. The aching. She wanted to lie down against the earth at one point, feeling her eyesight shudder against the darkness, the unmistakable hiss of unconsciousness ringing her ears. She paused beneath a street light and steadied herself. Her lip had stopped bleeding, instead caked in a lumpy red and brown mixture of blood and saliva. Blood still oozed from her palm, stills scrunched into her coat. The blood from her ankle had filled her shoe, making her foot wet, but at least the gash was starting to clot.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to steady herself against the beating exhaustion starting to crumble her bones.

"Mademoiselle?"

She looked up slowly to see a uniformed man stood on the road, looking at her with concerns.

The adrenaline rushed her once more, her eyes facing him with deer-like stillness.

"Are you ok?" He asked, his French smooth.

She still didn't respond, her hand tightly holding the pole.

"Sprichst du Deutsch?" He asked unsurely, her complete stillness unnerving him.

"S'il vous plaît," she said, the nerve igniting in her as she stepped forward, holding out the bloody card, her lip trembling, fingers trembling. Soft and sweet. Helpless. "I need to find mon amie."

He saw the blood and took it with a flinch of disgust, which melted into a shocked and then hardened resolved to see the man's name printed on the cardboard.

"I am about to have dîner with him," the man said, a lopsided grin taking his face for a moment. "Superb luck, Mademoiselle….?"

"Audrey," she said quietly. He nodded and offered a hand, but she shook her hand, burying her bloody palm against the material of her coat once more, choosing to walk at a small distance, following him with a lowered gaze and a soft limp.

She could feel the burn of his questions, unsaid yet hanging above them like the night sky. He kept turning curious glances, his young and boyish face taking her in. She wondered how bad she looked. She felt ravaged, she was sure she looked worse.

The card had worked as the authority. The young soldier was unable to question her, even as they neared the fancy, illuminated restaurant. She walked timidly up the concrete steps, feeling less and less sure of her legs beneath her. He naturally reached for her but she shook her head firmly.

"I'll bleed on you," she muttered. He froze, glancing across the patches of bloody cloth on her coat, the smears down her hands, her legs, her chin. He weakly nodded, choosing instead to let his hand hover over her lower back as she struggled each step at a time, focused entirely on the door in front of her.

She reached the inside of the restaurant and stood by the entry, rooted in place. A sea of uniforms shone in front of her and regret began to lace her veins. This was too public. Too drenched in occupation. This wouldn't be a game of cat and mouse, this would be theatre, and she knew that Hans Landa would perform for a standing ovation. She didn't follow the young soldier, who paused a few steps from her.

"Is the Fräulein dining?" A nearby maître d' interrupted, his eyes panicked at the state of the tiny woman stood in the doorway of the restaurant.

"Nein," the soldier responded. He reached the bloody card to the man, who eyed it with the same rush of dread. Even Hans Landa's name, simply printed in black and white, had the power to terrify. He ushered to the young soldier, eyes panicked and keen to have whatever this situation was dealt with as quickly as possible.

"Follow moi," the soldier said to Audrey, but she shook her head.

"Non," she said. Feet unable to move.

The soldier hesitated for a moment before tearing after the maître d', following him through the sparkling restaurant. She was already attracting stares and she caught a glance of her battered face, her wrung neck, shining back at her in a nearby mirrored column. It was swollen and angry and ugly, her cheek scratched and stretched against the vicious swelling beneath her skin. She gulped weakly, the screaming sound, like a snowstorm, clouding her hearing once again.

No, no, no, no, no. She couldn't faint. Not now. She had to be conscious, she had to be able to tell Landa she had come to find him. What Klutch had done. It was her time to manipulate him, be vulnerable but vicious, give him the gift of an opponent that he could actually play with. Her eyesight shorted as she felt the rigid tremor run her body, the exhaustion of keeping upright beginning to crush her. She swallowed thickly once more, willing herself desperately to stay awake.

She heard her name and looked up, eyes unfocused at the image of the young soldier beginning to rush towards her. They were on the opposite side of the dining hall, but Landa walked a calm pace, smiling pleasantly with mock concern lacing his features. She could see a wild delight in his eyes.

"Mademoiselle Loewe, what happened!" Landa called out in French, his tone sounding falsely worried. A ripple of silence coursed across the room, even his own terrified to speak in his presence. "Private Zoller has found you in such a terrible state!"

Audrey felt the burst of black stars crowd her vision and her hand automatically fished for something to cling to, but there was nothing. She suddenly felt as though she were drowning in space, unable to find her footing with her feet on the ground.

He called something else, but she couldn't hear it, the whirlwind of noise taking over her, cold perspiration exploding across her skin.

She looked forward to see the young soldier a few tables away, his footsteps speeding up at each footfall. She saw the shape of her name on his lips as she glanced back once more at Landa. She saw the mocking leave his gaze for just a moment, true surprise hitting his expression for only a second.

She was unconscious before she hit the ground.


	9. Chapter 9

Landa had seen many people 'faint' in his time in the SS. It was a good way to avoid questions. Usually, it was easy to tell when someone had 'fainted'. The movement would be slow, almost graceful, eyes closing as they floated down to the earth in a running river of limbs like people do in the movies. Particularly women. A beautiful lolling head, face obscured by a curtain of shining hair, body lying across the floor like a Grecian statue at the Louvre.

Audrey had not 'fainted'.

She had collapsed.

Her eyes had rolled back into her head and her body had fallen as though her bones were all of a sudden disconnected from one another. Dropping straight into the earth, dragged down by gravity.

Her head had met the corner of a nearby table with such an atrocious crack the woman sat at the table had screamed. Blood had poured from the gash on Audrey's hairline, matting against her hair and her skin, working its way into the carpet. She had been a mess of limbs on the floor, her spine curved to an unnatural arch, as though someone had dropped a marionette.

Audrey had not flinched or gasped or showed a flicker of consciousness.

Zoller had rolled her over with panic, the young woman grotesquely limp as she bled against the floor, her blonde hair suddenly holding a ghastly stroke of red. Landa glanced her face, the red and angry marks all precursor to some nasty bruising. Her split lip looked particularly painful.

Most of all he noticed the thick red line around her neck.

Approximately 1.2 inches wide. The same measurements as a standard-issue SS officer's belt.

A stray doctor had announced loudly 'i am a Doctor!' before he threw himself away from his dinner companions, snatched a nearby pristine white napkin and pressed it against Audrey's bloody forehead, ordering Zoller to maintain pressure. The doctor was checking her pulse, her mouth, pulling at her eyelids, slapping her face.

Landa had interrupted the scene with a swift wave of his hand, putting his gloves on with a flourish as he demanded the car to be brought around.

"I'll take her to a hospital," he had scolded the nearby man. The doctor had let go anxiously, eyes focusing still on the shattered young woman lay below his hands. Landa felt a twitch of a smile that his reputation outweighed the Hippocratic oath.

Landa instructed Zoller to pick her up, her body limp in Zoller's arms, head lolling, blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. Zoller had looked horrified at the sight which amused Landa immensely. This 'killing machine' looked ill at the sight of blood on a pretty blonde face. No wonder Audrey had so easily evaded his men for so long.

She had been lain down in the back of the car, her head in Landa's lap. He'd examined her wounds with gloved hands. Noting the blooming bruises, the scrapes over her arms, her hands. The tiny cuts on her cheeks, no doubt caused by the rings on Klutch's hands. Her breathing was shallow, her body utterly yielding beneath his administrations. He tutted aloud, fingers on her chin, his thumb pulling down her lip to see blood coating her teeth.

When he had told Klutch last week that he was very taken with the wonderful Madmoiselle Audrey Loewe from Luxembourg, he did not think the man would react in such a fashion. Landa hadn't really thought too much of what would happen next. He had seen the lightening moment of recognition behind Klutch's eyes, the old drunk finally realising where he had seen the blonde beauty before. Klutch hadn't let on that he knew, he had simply said that Hans Landa would do well to not bother with pretty young women. Landa had smiled with cat-like glee, agreeing but arguing he doubted he'd be able to resist. The panic had ignited behind Klutch's eyes and Landa had felt sadistic joy. Landa just wished for something to happen. Something exciting. Something to frighten her. He thought perhaps Klutch would hurt her, maybe even defile her, but he was not expecting him to strangle her close to death.

He had just grown so frustrated in his desperation to know what she was hiding. He had gone off of his suspicion of the red cross doctor, and now he was assured that it was something much more serious. Much more important. It had made him feel frenzied, which he was equally thankful and hateful towards Audrey for.

He thought Klutch would fluster her, cause her to drop her guard. Perhaps he'd get her wide-eyed and terrified like the first time he had met her. Startled and flustered, leaving herself vulnerable.

Instead, he looked down at the unconscious woman in his lap and he grimaced.

Landa had handed her back to Zoller when they arrived at the American Hospital and the young man had carefully carried her inside the hospital. He felt humour that this war hero was so terrified at a little blood on a young woman. He was ginger with her, flinching when Hans Landa tossed forward her limp body from the back of the car.

"Excusez-moi!" Landa yelled when they arrived inside the building. "Some help, S'il vous plaît!"

A flurry of medical staff had rushed forward, pulling Audrey on to a gurney and whisking her away from them. She looked puppet-like, so utterly debilitated, her body under the whim of gravity.

Landa had specifically chosen the hospital because he knew that a certain young man worked there. A certain young man who had also been captured by Audrey Loewe.

A certain Doctor Oscar Clément.

Doctor Clément loved his role as a Red Cross doctor.

A role where not only was he doing the right thing, he was gaining valuable experience and garnering respect from every part of society. He hadn't initially even wanted to be a doctor, but his father who was an accomplished physician had pushed and urged until he had finally given in. Oscar hadn't wanted to play the guitar and take lovers across Paris. If he was honest he was still doing both of those things, and being a doctor certainly helped with the later.

Oscar Clément was exactly the archetype of a womaniser. He was handsome and tall, devastatingly charming and uproariously funny. He knew where all the best bars and cafe in Paris were, the perfect mixture of a bad boy due to his association with Free France and the breeding and work of a man perfect to bring home to mama and papa, and he knew exactly where to kiss beneath a girl's ear to make her melt.

Making women want him was not hard. It wasn't something he even particularly thought about.

But he was thinking about her an awful lot.

Earlier that day before his nightshift at the American Hospital he had loitered around Notre Dame in hope that he would run into her. She had blinked in surprise when he called out her name before giving him a small but devastatingly charming smile and wave. He'd taken her out for breakfast at a fancy cafe, insisted on paying, and taken her for a walk around the fourth arrondissement. He'd presented her a present while they stood against the River Seine, a small book wrapped in brown paper. She had laughed aloud when she tore the paper to see Robert Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer. She had glanced up at him with a soft smile, her blonde hair dishevelled from the gentle fall wind. He had tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and she had looked up at him with an easy, friendly smile.

He wanted to know all of her so badly and she barely let him see an inch.

He had grown enamoured with her over the past few weeks. He took any excuse to see her and any excuse to think of her. She was the exact kind of woman he wanted to marry. One that was smart and clever and fiercely independent. One that didn't need him, but would choose him.

So as he took a small break during his night shift he had felt a thrust of physical illness when he saw her bloody and unconscious on the gurney, rushed past him with a flurry of shouts from doctors and nurses, all pulling at her, feeling for a pulse and a breath. Any sign of life.

Oscar had turned to run after her, but he heard his name shouted and had become frozen in place.

"Ah, Doctor Clément!" Landa called, waving the young man to him. Oscar looked torn for a moment, turning his head between the terrifying and infamous Jew Hunter, and the bloody and limp woman. He carefully walked towards Landa, the anxiety not a good fit to his usually confident form.

"What happened?" Oscar asked, his voice tight and eyes wide.

"We don't know," Landa said with a frown, sounding disrespectfully familiar. "My officer found her. She collapsed before we could ask."

Oscar's head swivelled back again, but Audrey had already disappeared into the labyrinth of the hospital.

Landa glanced over Oscar once more, the young man unthinking bringing his thumb to his mouth to worry on the nail as his eyes sat unseeing, glancing back again down the now empty corridor. Oscar let a dizzying array of horrifying scenarios in which Audrey would be so brutalised. They all lead in one way or another back to Hans Landa. He felt his stomach turn once more, trying to suppress the violent words and images rushing forward, making him feel faint.

"Can you think of anyone suspicious Doctor?" Landa asked. Oscar glanced back, looking even more confused and worried at the new question.

"Excusez-moi Colonel?" Oscar asked, feeling unnerved by the calmness that Landa presented. He could see speaks of her blood on the Nazi, a bloody smear against the young soldier's jacket from where he had most-likely held Audrey. At least the young private looked distressed by the bloody and twisted form that Audrey was now inhabiting.

"Do you know anyone who has been bothering her?" Landa restated, leaning forward ever so slightly.

Oscar felt the word 'you' form on his tongue, before bitterly swallowing it and instead shook his head, eyes darting to the ground.

"She looks beaten," Oscar uttered, his voice sounding choked. He was trying to stay calm but he could feel himself becoming more and more upset.

"Yes," Landa agreed casually. "Shame."

Oscar looked offended at the flippancy of Landa's reply, brows twitching into a furrow before he forced his face back to a state of flickering between emotionless and troubled.

"She is usually very pretty," Landa called back to his unnamed officer. Oscar glanced over at the blonde, blue-eyed private. The young man looked surprised, glancing between the doctor and Landa for a moment. "She is isn't she, Doctor Clément, you think she is very pretty?"

Oscar stayed silent for a long moment, rage flickering his features for the briefest of a second.

"Oui," Oscar murmured bitterly.

"Ah," Landa smiled, taking in Zoller's confusion. "You don't think she is pretty because you have only seen her face swollen and bloody. She is very pretty, she looks a lot like Gene Tierney."

"Oh," Zoller said, blinking in surprise as he tried to morph the battered woman he had seen with the iconic actress, finding the pictures difficult to overlap.

"Doesn't she look like Gene Tierney?" Landa asked Oscar.

Oscar stared at him, finding the entire conversation astonishingly distasteful.

"I think she looks like Audrey," Oscar said quietly, feeling his jaw begin to tense. "I hadn't noticed"

"Doctor Clément is quite taken by her," Landa continued easily. "Isn't that right Doctor Clément?"

Oscar said nothing.

"Ah, I understand though Doctor," Landa said amiably, smiling coolly at the young man. "Smart, tough, beautiful, it would be hard not to be! You are only human after all."

Doctor Clément said nothing.

"You can go if you wish," Landa said, flicking his hand at him. Oscar hesitated for only a moment before quickly rushing to be by Audrey Loewe's side. Landa watched the quick footsteps of Oscar Clément and smiled quietly to himself.

This was a good development. Men like Oscar were some of Hans Landa's favourite. Men whose greatest weakness was their belief in their own brilliance. Oscar Clément was this to a tee. His intelligence and handsome face made him vulnerable to somebody like Audrey. Someone who had seen too much and therefore were not as impressed by seeing someone like him. He understood Oscar's need to be witnessed by the young woman. A beautiful face with a deep, dark soul. Someone like her would be a once in a lifetime acquaintance for someone like Oscar, so of course, he wished to know her fully.

"Zoller," Landa called. Zoller stood to attention, watching Landa with a blind loyalty which made a smile twitch at Landa's lips. "Wait with her, call me when she wakes up."

"Ja Sir," Zoller barked, walking swiftly into the twisting corridors of the hospital to find the bloody blonde beauty.

Landa grinned darkly to himself.

He was sure he'd get some good use out of Oscar Clément.


	10. Chapter 10

The water dribbled down her forehead, curving against her eyebrow. The thin, cool liquid punctured through the darkness as her eyes slowly fluttered open, unable to take in the view illuminated by the harsh bright light.

She tried to move but she winced. Even a millimetre of movement caused her body to ache, but she felt no pain. She felt woozy and light, her skin sunk firmly against the mattress beneath her. She knew that whatever was coursing through her veins was bad. Whatever opioid that had been pumped into her would make her careless and dull, but in that exact moment, feeling pain-free and relaxed, she could forgive this weakness.

His face came in to view as the sound of water sloshing hit her ears.

The first thing she thought was that he looked like an angel.

She took in his calm and kind face, his hair twirled above his head like an angel's halo, and she had felt a very small smile twitch her lips. His eyes fluttered from his work down to her, and he smiled so sweetly she had felt her heartthrob.

"Bonjour Audrey," he murmured, his hands continue to work on her.

"Salut Oscar," she whispered.

He continued, hands gentle and swift as he moved the cool water across her sore skin.

"Comment Allez Vous?" She asked.

He laughed softly, coming to sit down on the edge of the bed as his body crowded the space. She sat upright on the bed, propped up copious pillows. Her whole world was taken up by Oscar Clément and it filed her with effortless comfort.

"Très Bien," he told her. She kept her eyes trained to his face, the silly smile still pressed to her damaged lip.

He continued to clean her skin, her hair, carefully wiping away the dried blood that the brutal attack had left. His sleeves were pushed up and she let out a soft sigh at each fresh drop of water. He finished and leant over her, his hands pressed to the pillow by her head. She hadn't taken the dreamy expression off of her face, smiling sweetly at him. He had never seen her like that, not even when she had played soft and sweet to shepherd him back into the apartment.

"What?" he asked.

She chuckled, closing her eyes for a moment once more with a soft sigh.

"Don't the sisters usually do this?" She asked, eyes fluttering open once more.

"Oui," he told her, his spare hand coming to softly push the damp baby hair from her forehead. "But I wanted to do it."

"Oscar," she said softly and sweetly, a new smile hitting her lips. "Très kind…"

"Do you remember what happened?" he asked her gently. She nodded weakly, her eyes closing once more as Oscar gently stroked her hair, the broad comforting movement making her melt.

"Do you remember how you got here?" he asked her. She minutely shook her head, her hand seeking his thigh, pressing the heavily bandaged palm to his trousers.

"I'm so happy to see you," she whispered, ignoring the line of questioning.

"I'm happy to see you awake," he answered. He leant down softly and kissed the undamaged corner of her mouth. She let out a gentle laugh once more as he sat back, her fingers pressing against his leg.

She heard the footsteps behind him, but she didn't care. She wanted to stay in the moment for as long as she possibly could. Her whole world narrowed down to just one person. One person who just wanted to take care of her and love her. She knew it was the painkillers talking but at that moment she wanted to ask Oscar to simply pick her up and take her home.

"Bonjour Doctor Clément,' a voice called. Oscar sat back, turning his body to view the voice who had spoken. Audrey glanced up her bed to see a young, blonde Nazi solider. He looked exhausted, watching her with a tired smile.

"Do I know you?" Audrey asked quietly, unable to place his familiar face.

"Oui Mademoiselle, I found you last night," he said. She let out a soft 'ah', noting his perfectly spoken French.

"I didn't catch your name last night Officer," Oscar called. He pleasantly noted to himself that Audrey's hand was still pressed to his leg, the familiarity of her touch made him fill with pride.

"Fredrick Zoller, sir," he said proudly, feet clicking loudly as he stood to full attention.

Oscar's eyes swelled with recognition, surprised that the same flustered young man who had brought the unconscious Audrey to the hospital yesterday was the Fredrick Zoller.

Audrey looked between the two men, unable to place the name despite the fact it snagged a memory. Oscar tensed beneath her grip and she threw a confused look to him, his face still and careful in the face of this new name.

"Ah, Mademoiselle Loewe!"

The voice broke through the tension and she looked up to see Hans Landa languidly walking up to her bed, his face well-rested and amiable.

"Bonjour Colonel Landa," she said coolly. "How are you?"

"Very well Audrey," he said, smiling as his eyes stayed focus on her. "Perhaps we can have a moment alone?"

"Oui," she agreed. Oscar hesitated but stood gradually, his hand coming to softly squeeze her wrist in a movement of comfort.

"I'll get you some ice chips," he said cautiously. She nodded once more.

"Private Zoller, will you assist?" Landa called back, coming to stand by her bed and stare down at her. Zoller nodded and saluted, walking quickly behind the apprehensive Oscar Clément.

"Are you well this morning Audrey?" Landa asked in English as he sat down smoothly in the chair by her bed. A smile twitched her lips, noting his swift switch to a language that she knew for a fact that Oscar could not speak, and could guess that neither did Zoller.

She gestured at the IV Bag dripping steadily into her veins.

"Very well then," Landa chuckled.

"Do you want to know what happened, or do you already know?" She asked flatly.

He chuckled once more, looking over her with keen interest.

"I guess we may as well cut to the chase," he said. 'Where is he?"

"Excuse me?" She said, her eyes narrowing.

"Where is he, Audrey?" Landa repeated slowly.

"How should I know?" she snapped, finding a flair of anger spark across her.

"Did you hurt him?" Landa asked.

"Do I _look_ like I hurt him?"

"It would only be a one, well-placed hit," Landa said slowly, condescendingly.

"He tried to kill me," she bit back, looking furious.

"Well we can't find him," Landa said evenly.

"Well, he's _your_ officer," she growled out. "Seems like _your_ problem Hans."

"Morphine makes you mean Audrey," Landa teased, glancing up at her with a shake of his head.

"What makes me mean," she snarled bitterly. "Is that the last thing I can remember is hiding from _your_ officer, before fainting in front of _you_ at a restaurant. And now you ask me what _I_ did?'

He sighed out, leaning back and lazily raising his hands in mock surrender.

"Do you have no shame?" She asked him, glaring viciously at him from the bed.

"No," he told her honestly, shrugging easily. She looked away and willed calmness back to her face.

"So, Audrey," he said smoothly, acknowledging that now was not the time to tease and taunt her. "What happened?"

She kept her eyes averted as she sighed, eyes drilling against the blanket over her legs.

"I went to pray," she muttered.

"Where?" Landa asked, his tone suddenly unnervingly serious.

"At the Church Saint-Denys-of-the-Sacramen," she answered.

"Why?" he asked, pulling out a notebook from his bag and fiddling with a fountain pen. He lay it all out smoothly on the edge of her bed, the leather binder pressing against her leg. She watched him, noting for the first time since meeting him the hawk-like attributes that he possessed. He was much more the hunter than the bright laughs and smiles, the silly quips and charming comments gave way too. "Continue Miss Loewe."

"Because I was feeling guilty about Oscar," she said, ensuring the right about of bitterness hung in her voice. Landa let a small smile catch his expression before he gestured for her to continue.

"I thought it was you," she said quietly keeping her eyes low. "And I looked up.. it was him."

"Who?" He asked. Her brows furrowed, and he tapped the notepaper below him.

"Sargent Klutch," she said, unable to keep the hate from her tone. He gave a thoughtful frown before gesturing for her to continue speaking.

"He said that he knew who I was, that you didn't," she said. "I assured him you did… he wouldn't listen… he… hit me. Kicked me. Strangled me… I um… got loose, he ran at me, I hit him once with a candlestick… he ran after me. I hid in an abandoned… shop, I think? I waited. I got your card from my bag, and I found Zoller. He brought me to you."

"Why didn't you come to the hospital?" Landa interrupted, blinking innocently.

"Because he would have followed me to the hospital," she said calmly.

"Not home?" He said, the same innocuous expression on his face.

"I once heard a soldier refer to you as 'unquestionable'," she said, ignoring his line of questioning. He paused with his pen for a moment, looking up at her, head tilting ever so slightly. "I hoped that Klutch would feel the same."

"Ah," he said, smiling softly as he continued to jot down notes.

"And, where is he?" He repeated.

"I don't know," she repeated with a small sigh. "I'm sorry."

He paused, examining her face closely for the lie but it didn't come.

"Did you think you were going to die?" He said simply.

"Yes," she said, eyes glassy for a moment.

"Shame," he said with a twitch of a frown.

The footsteps of their companions paused the conversation. She watched Oscar anxiously take in the pair, a cup of ice held in his hand. He walked swiftly, sitting beside the bed, back to Landa as he passed the cup to her, smiling as she tipped it into her mouth. She could see Landa carefully pack away his notes, the cat letting the proverbial mouse go for the time being.

"Shall I drive you home Audrey?" Landa asked in French, his over-familiar tone bristling Oscar.

"I'm going to take care of her," Oscar said firmly, eyes staring down the infamous Nazi officer with such finality that Audrey had been quietly impressed.

"Ah, young love," Landa teased, hand coming to swiftly pat Audrey's uninjured hand, resting above the blankets.

He stood easily, passing his bag to Zoller with a fresh, cheerful smile.

"Adieu Audrey," he said brightly. "Feel better, I'll be in touch."

"Merci," she said calmly.

The two men turned but Audrey called out once more.

"Private Zoller," she said. The young man turned, blinking in surprise that she had spoken to him. "Merci for saving my life."

"Of course, Madmoiselle Loewe," Zoller said, blinking once more in pleasant surprise. "Feel better soon."

"Merci," she repeated with a small smile.

She watched the two men walk away slowly, her hand coming to sit atop Oscar's once more. All she could hope was that the Basterd's had put a bullet in the head of the rabid dog that was Klutch, and that she would never have to utter the name of that monster ever again.

She had stayed in the hospital for four more days, and Oscar had been a constant. He did nothing but take care of her at every moment he had free, checking on her during his shifts, doting on her on his time off. He had taken her home on the eve of the fourth day, gentle with her as he drove her home, guiding her up the stairs, smiling warmly as he helped her take her coat off in the hallway.

When Oscar went to leave she gently pressed her hand to his back. He turned slowly, looking down at her with such concern that she felt her heart melt.

"Stay," she whispered.

Oscar stared at her for a long moment, leaning down to softly kiss her. They stood there, in the hallway, gently kissing each other in the doorway, his hands gently cupping her face, hers pressed to his chest.

"Come inside," she murmured.

"You're black and blue," he whispered, looking hesitant.

"Then be gentle," she murmured back with a teasing laugh, kissing him once again to drown any protests.

Audrey had slept with men before. Strangely, it was one of the few things that made her feel alive, but she hadn't slept with anyone she cared about. Not someone that made her knees weak, made her blush. Oscar made her feel young and soft, sweet and gentle.

His hands ran across her as she took him to her bedroom, softly laughing as they struggled out of their clothes, sighing with relief when they finally lay with one another, his hands strong and reassuring, the movement making her aching skin chill with smooth relief.

She felt a sense of home under his ministrations, her breath gentle, her sighs like singing. She had whispered his name, again and again, feeling tears of joy prick her gaze when she finally came undone beneath him, her hands in his hair, running down his back.

He'd held her afterwards as though she were made to be in his arms, softly and carefully with a tender concern that made the blush run pink across her nose and down her cheeks.

"I'm so relieved you're ok," he whispered against the darkness.

"Thank you," she murmured, her cheek pressed to his chest as he ran smooth strokes against her hair.

She let the darkness embrace her fully, her aching skin feeling calmed against the hands of Oscar Clément, a soft smile touching her lips.

For the first time in four years, she felt home.


	11. Chapter 11

She certainly wasn't happy that she was an invalid, but she was comfortable.

Oscar took care of every whim, every ache, every concern, doting on every need. This was a man that Audrey couldn't have dreamed of. He was sweet and soft, caring without expecting a reward. He softly kissed her head at every chance he got, making sure she was fed and rested. He cleaned the wound on her head and her hand, he massaged her aching muscles, and he made her laugh, letting her head empty of fear and worry.

She loved looking at him when he rested, exhausted from work, asleep atop the covers of her bed as she lay beside him, eyes shining in the dark to look upon him. She didn't feel that she owned him, nor did she think he was a soulmate. He was a short-term love which she was grateful for. Their worlds were too different, and Oscar in all of his privilege would never understand her truly in the way she needed to be understood.

But at that moment it didn't matter.

It didn't matter when his hands were roaming her body, coaxing soft moans against clean sheets.

It didn't matter when her head lay in his lap, his fingers playing languidly with her hair.

It didn't matter when he curled his arm over her waist while she slept, nose buried into the space behind her ear.

He made her feel warm and domestic and safe. She let her worries lay away from her as she curled into her life in her apartment, still too bruised for work, but well enough to enjoy his company.

She let herself forget the Basterd's and the papers.

She let herself be the version of Audrey that she felt she was probably going to be, before that fateful night in the snow.

A young woman who was funny and sweet, who could love freely and make a home where ever her feet lay.

It had ended the night the door had been knocked upon.

He had brought her a Jazz record, playing it in the living room and dancing with her, teasing her gently for her still timid movement, his feet fluttering across the floor with ease. She had laughed brightly at his movement, each burst of laughter smothered by a sweet kiss by him, a funny comment whispered to her lips.

The knock on the door had been innocuous but she knew it was not. He had turned the record off and sat her on the sofa, kissing her softly once more as he got the door, unbothered by the puncture in her picture-perfect fantasy. Oscar thought it was nothing.

But she knew it wasn't nothing.

She heard his voice float in, familiar and friendly as always. She closed her eyes, exhausted again that it was all going to continue. Life can't stop forever, no matter how badly one wants it to.

She turned her head easily, blonde hair feathering about her face as he walked into the doorway, smiling warmly at her, his hands clapping in front of him as he took in the view of her.

She looked much better, she was sure. The swelling was all gone, her lip slowly healed, her features no longer morphed by stretched skin. When she had complained that she felt ugly, Oscar had whispered to her that her bruises reminded him of watercolour, brush strokes of blue, purple and black. The only thing she couldn't forgive was the thick black and purple bruise about her throat, looking like a grotesque velvet ribbon, tightly twirling across her neck.

"Bonsoir Colonel Landa," she said, keeping her expression indifferent, her eyes polite. "How may I assist you?"

"Bonsoir Audrey," he said, his teeth showing as he smiled warmly at her. "You are looking much better."

She didn't say thank you. She knew how this worked. He wanted his victim to run their tongues, let the words twist themselves into solid form, into the shackles he'd cuff them with, the rope he'd hang them with. She wouldn't do it, not anymore. She had shown her hand at the hotel when she had slapped him, her emotions free and his to play with.

That lack of judgement, that slip of character, that had nearly killed her.

"I am here for the hole in the wall," he said, a smile crossing his features once more.

"I will show you-" Oscar began but Landa's hand held up, his palm facing Audrey.

"Ah ah ah," he tutted, smiling wolfishly. "I asked Madmoiselle Loewe."

"Of course," she said smoothly, struggling upwards, her sore ankle, her bruised and fractured ribs, still not cooperating with her. She hated with a burning passion the 'ah ah ah' noise that Landa spat out with such friendly disposition. She hated that he played dumb, as though he did not know how terrifyingly monstrous he was.

She stood uneasily, walking over to him and dipping past him, heading straight to Arthur's room. She struggled down once more, flicking her hand at Oscar when he attempted to assist her. Landa watched pleasantly, looking almost serene as she fiddled with the sideboard before finally tugging it loose. She let out a small cough as a rush of dust spread forward, sitting back on her heels as she looked back at Landa expertly. He crouched down beside her, fishing a flashlight from his belt and shining it into the hole. A gloved hand delved in, feeling the space for lumps and bumps, clues of what it may or may not have held. He kept her face in his peripheral vision at all times, awaiting a response.

Stoic as always, Audrey stared on as though she were watching paint dry.

"Ah," he sighed after satisfying his curiosity. "You are correct Audrey, it is certainly a hole in the wall."

She let a smile twitch her face, her eyes drifting up at him as he flourished his handkerchief, using it to rub the dust of his gloves.

"What did she say was in it?" Landa asked, voice conversational, his eyes gliding to Oscar.

"Nothing," Oscar answered, his voice cool. Audrey internally flinched, it was too cool. Landa would be able to tell.

"Nothing?" Landa replied. "Then why did you come to the house?"

"Because it was an excuse to see Audrey," Oscar said. That at least sounded plausible, his voice held the right amount of worried, embarrassed, and genuine.

But the way he had said 'nothing' stuck in Audrey's mind.

"Ah, a romantic, like myself," Landa teased, standing easily. Audrey struggled upwards and Oscar stepped forward but Landa once again let out an 'ah ah ah'. Audrey involuntarily pulled a face of irritation and Landa chuckled. He held his hand to her and she reluctantly took it, feeling his other hand wrap around her elbow as she struggled to a stand.

"Still not fully healed I see Audrey," he cooed, frowning at her. The concern never reached his eyes, instead, they continued to search hers for secrets.

"Non," she agreed, letting go of his grip as soon as she steadied herself. He did not let go, holding on for a beat of a second too long. She felt hateful for a moment but kept her cool, her head dropping down in an attempt to disguise her anger.

"You did say I could come at my convenience," he teased her, tilting his head down to catch her gaze.

"I did," she said, glancing up at him with a small sigh.

He twitched a smile at her, all but forgetting Oscar's presence as his full attention bore on to her.

"We still haven't found Sturmbannführer Klutch," Landa said in German, gaze keenly awaiting a response.

"Bitte tell me when you do, Herr Landa," Audrey responded. Her eyes held his with such lack of hesitation, such readiness to be explored and seen he had felt his whole mouth jerk into a foxlike smile.

He tutted loudly once more.

"Ah Audrey," he cooed in French once more. "You never tire me."

She didn't respond, her expression impassive, but with a burn of rage hidden in her crystalline eyes.

"Au revoir Audrey," he said warmly, before glancing back with a nod of his head. "Doctor Clément."

He showed himself out, slamming the door shut as he went.

They had stood in silence for a long moment, Audrey's mind ticking over the conversation.

"What was he-"

She interrupted him with a shake of her head.

"Oscar please," she murmured, hands coming to worry her temples. A throbbing headache engulfed her as the way that Oscar had said 'nothing' echoed about in her mind, causing all manner of horror to be produced, each new idea engulfing her with fear and sickness.

She had fallen asleep that night with a restlessness that Oscar had never seen be her, her unknown German exchange plaguing him till the early dawn light.

It had been three days later she had returned to work. She was honestly grateful for the distraction. Landa's visit had punctured the fantasy and life was quickly draining from it. She could feel distrust from Oscar because he knew she hid things. He just didn't know what.

He didn't know that it was Jewish blood. He thought it was something more salacious. He wouldn't say that to her of course, but she could tell. It always happened. Whenever she took a lover there would be a golden period, until they tried to know her. Until they realised she had secrets that she would never share.

It was on her fourth day back that Audrey's morning had been interrupted by a squeal from Nannette. The fresh-faced teenager who had recently commenced work at Mousier Brodeur's atelier. Madame Halphen, the Première D'Atelier, quickly hushed the young girl, an exasperated look crossing her face.

"Madame Halphen," Nanette cried, eyes wild with excitement. "He is coming up the stairs!"

"Who is?" She scolded, irritated by the girl's teenage charm. Audrey felt a little smile tug at her lips, the girl's expression, young and innocent, an uncommon sight in war-torn Paris.

"Fredrick Zoller!" Nanette squealed. A ripple of excitement rushed across the room but Audrey frowned.

She had meant to ask Oscar where he knew the name for but had forgotten too, instead, she had fallen into the steady schedule of intimacy and loving care. Audrey let a small scowl reach her face, the inevitable reach of the Nazi Party already trickling back into every inch of her world.

"Fredrick Zoller!" the girls whispered to one another, all equally thrilled at the idea that the celebrity would attend their workshop. Audrey attended to her work instead, carefully stitching the coat of a wealthy patron, her eyes trained carefully on the fabric in front of her.

"Ah, Private Zoller!" Monsieur Broduer called out, the same cloying tone once again hitting his words.

"Bonjour Monsieur Brodeur," Zoller called, his voice as friendly as Audrey remembered. "It is a pleasure to meet in person."

"The pleasure is all mine," Monsieur Brodeur called out. "Do you have your jacket?"

"Oui," Fredrick responded.

"Well, given that your French is so wonderful, you should be seen by our fantastic Première D'Atelier, Madame Adaline Halphen-"

"Although I am sure she is wonderful," Zoller interrupted politely. "I have been recommended Audrey Loewe by a very important officer. He says you cannot even see she has completed the work, that is how subtle and ingenious she is."

"Ah, Mademoiselle Loewe," Monsieur Brodeur agreed, his hands clapping together. "She speaks wonderful German."

She heard their footsteps approaching but she kept her head low, her mind focused on the work in front of her.

"Good timing Private Zoller," Monsieur Brodeur praised. "She has just returned to us. Audrey!"

Audrey looked up slowly, her hands still holding the thread and needle against the black dress coat. Zoller smiled at her, disposition cheerful and bubbly, waving at her briefly.

"Bonjour Private Zoller-"

"German Audrey," Monsieur Brodeur interrupted. She blinked in surprise, opening her mouth to argue.

"Non, I love the opportunity to practice my French," Zoller interrupted, holding his hand in the air to silence herself and Monsieur Brodeur. "I am in Paris after all. S'il vous plaît, I would prefer she speak French, is that agreeable to you Madmoiselle Loewe?"

"Oui, of course," she said, smiling tightly at her boss who looked flustered for a moment.

"Whatever you prefer Private Zoller," he said in a discomposed voice. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Non," Zoller said calmly. "Merci."

Monsieur Brodeur had bowed quickly, stumbling back as he left Zoller in the presence of his young seamstress.

Audrey stood slowly, carefully placing her needle and thread down and meticulously laying the garment on the table in front of her.

"How may I assist you this morning Private Zoller?" She asked smoothly, smiling politely.

She watched him carefully remove a pristine white jacket from a garment bag. She observed it as he held it up, head tilting slightly to take it in.

She had never seen a summer white tunic up close. She'd seen the dress uniform in pictures, but to see it up close, the pristine white fabric not showing an inch of the blood she knew the Nazi's held all over their hands. The casualness of it placed in front of her, made her blood fizz with rage. She hid it though, instead, turning a calm gaze to Zoller's face once more with an inquisitive expression.

"I feel it doesn't quite fit," he explained. "And I would like it to look perfect."

"Of course," she agreed, smiling graciously once more. "Will you wear it for me?"

He nodded, slipping out of his brown uniform and shrugging on the white jacket. She saw the glance of a gun on his hip and held her nerve, watching, instead, the way the white fabric rippled across his body. He was right. It was fitted, but not precise. A pinch of fabric here and there, the tightening of one or two buttons, and it would be tailored to perfection.

"Very easy," she assured him, looking at him attentively. "Do you mind?"

"Of course not, please," he said, gesturing down his jacket. She carefully matched thread to the fabric, eyes focused upon her work as she pinched different creases, carefully pulling and preening the material. The intensity of her gaze made him smile. Zoller liked an intense woman. Zoller watched her bruised yet beautiful face fiercely focus on his jacket, fingers carefully adjusting and readjusting the white material. He let her work in silence for several minutes, stood in front of the cool morning light filtering in through the nearby window.

"How long have you been a seamstress?" he asked her, breaking the silence.

"Four years," she answered. He watched her carefully pin the side of the jacket, adjusting and readjusting the hem once more.

"Do you like it?" He asked.

"Oui," she answered.

"How is Doctor Clément?" He asked. She paused and looked up, confession and bemusement crossing her features.

"He's well," she said slowly, a little smile catching her mouth. "He drove me to work this morning."

"He seems lovely," Zoller agreed, noting the bemused shake of her head she gave him.

"Have you been seeing him long?" he asked, conversational once more.

"Non," she said. "Only a few weeks."

"Ah, very new," Zoller said, sounding pleased with the discovery.

"But he has taken excellent care of me," Audrey continued. "He is very sweet."

"Do a lot of French women like sweet men?" Zoller asked.

"I wouldn't know," Audrey said, carefully unpicking part of the hem at the bottom of his jacket before pinning it once more. "I am from Luxembourg."

"Ah!" Zoller said, grinning boyishly at her. "I thought I detected an accent! You speak Luxembourgish then?"

"Oui," she answered.

"And German, and English, and Russian!" Monsieur Brodeur called from across the room, abandoning his busy work momentarily.

Zoller let out an impressed whistle and Audrey walked behind him to check the back of the jacket, a finger carefully running down the seam on his spine.

"I consider myself very proficient at languages, but even I don't speak so many," he said, glancing back to see her. She gently touched the back of his head, silently encouraging him to continue to look forward.

"Merci Private Zoller," she said distractedly.

"Fredrick," he corrected. She didn't respond, instead, she continued to work silently behind him.

"And which do you like the most?" He asked, unwilling to give up on the conversation with her.

"Russian," she answered honestly. "It is what my mother spoke."

"Oh, is she no longer with us?" He asked sadly.

"Non," she said. "Neither is my father."

"I am sorry to hear this," he said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. She quietly furrowed her brow, surprised as to why Landa wouldn't have already shared this with Fredrick Zoller. She wondered instead if Hans Landa was trying to get her to spill a secret to an unknowing spy. Fredrick would be a good choice. Handsome and sweet, she could easily see other women falling into this honey pot. She tutted quietly to herself that Hans Landa would think her so stupid.

"It's fine," she said dismissively, not wanting to continue the conversation down such a tedious route. "What language is your favourite to speak?"

"German of course," he said, laughing at the question. "But then French, then English."

"Ah, English," she chuckled, leaning around him to snatch a few more pins from her table. She carefully pinned the back of his jacket, delicately flipping the hem back and forth to check her work. "Piece of cake."

He laughed at her truly American saying, glancing back again. She gently touched the back of his head once more and he looked forward, grinning again with adolescent charm.

She returned to the front of him, gesturing him to sit on the nearby tall stool. He did as she asked, her hands careful to guide the hem and protect her pin work.

"May I enquire what event the jacket is for Private Zoller?" She queried casually, her attention turning towards the buttons that ran the front of him.

"It's for a film premier," he told her, sounding boastful.

"Oh la la," she teased, a small smile twitching her lips. "Très exciting Monsieur Zoller."

"It's a movie about me, and my exploits in Italy," he said. She glanced back to see that the other seamstresses had grown silent, now all watching the interaction with keen interest.

Audrey stood back with a sigh, looking up innocently at him.

"Monsieur Zoller, I must admit to you, that I do not know what you did in Italy," she said with a shrug.

He chuckled with a boyish grin.

"In fact," she continued, teasingly smiling at him. "I do not know who you are."

"Well…" he said calmly, a small smile inching his face. "I was alone in a bell tower in a walled-off city. It was myself and a thousand rounds of ammo in a bird's nest, against three hundred enemy soldiers."

"How did you fit?" Audrey asked curiously, rethreading a needle with pristine white thread as he spoke. He let out a puff of laughter, smiling warmly at her.

"Ah, non, Madmoiselle Loewe, it is what a sniper would call a bell tower," he corrected warmly. "Very tall, offering a three hundred and sixty-degree view of the surrounds. Very advantageous for marksmanship."

"Oh," Audrey said, laughing at her own ignorance for a moment. "Forgive me, please continue Monsieur Zoller. How many men did your marksmanship take care of?"

"Sixty-eight," Zoller said calmly.

"Oh la la," she whispered to herself, eyebrows jumping in awe at such a number, she returned her hands to his jacket, carefully adjusting one of the grand buttons, continue to stitch it skilfully in place.

"The first day."

She paused, face close to his as she looked up slowly, blinking once in shock.

"One hundred and fifty, the second," he continued, his face calm but serious. She blinked once more. "Twenty-two on the third."

She was still, listening intently, as was the rest of the workroom.

"On the fourth day the exited the city," he said with a wave of his hand.

She leant back, abandoning her work to stare at him, eyes filled with shock at such a tale.

She was sure, quietly, that he had had a lot of practice telling the story, but alas it was still terribly impressive, even if it were the story of a Nazi.

"Oh my Fredrick," she whispered quietly, a small sad quality catching her gaze.

"Naturally my war story received a lot of attention in Germany," he continued, ignoring her sympathy. He leant in, glancing to the rest of the workroom "… that's why they recognise me."

"Ah," she said quietly, nodding as she glanced back at her colleagues.

"They call me the German sergeant York," he whispered.

"I don't know who that is," Audrey confided, causing a fresh smile to hit his face.

"This is what your movie is about?" She asked conversationally, returning her hands to her work. She carefully adjusted the button after a quick few stitches, finishing the work with a small flourish. She looked up when he hadn't answered, smiling softly at him. "Who plays you, Fredrick?"

"Ah, I do," he said, grinning boyishly at her once more, but with a hint of embarrassment.

"You mean, I am sewing the jacket of a movie star?" she teased, grinning gently. She let out a small whimper as she felt the skin of her lip move, hurting her once more.

"Are you ok Mademoiselle?" He muttered, brows drawing in concern.

"I'm ok," she whispered. She gingerly checked to make sure she had not drawn blood, feeling relieved to see her fingers were clean.

"Are you even well enough to be at work?" Zoller asked quietly. She nodded, glancing up at him.

"Just tender," she said, smiling once more. "What is your movie called?"

He leant back as she stood close once more, beginning to fiddle with the lapel on his shoulder. Her face was close to his and he looked at her unashamedly, her eyes downcast as she focused on her work. Landa was right. She looked exactly like a blonde-haired version of Gene Tierney. Despite the bruising on her jaw, temple, neck, and cheek, she was genuinely gorgeous. Her crystalline blue eyes looked up at him and he gave her a fresh smile.

"Nation's Pride," he answered.

"Oh la la," she said once more, a small smile biting at her lip as she returned to her work. Sat on the tall stool he was still taller than her and it tickled him. "Do you play yourself, in a movie about yourself?"

"I know," he said quietly, a fresh smile hitting his face. She fiddled delicately with the label, moving to adjust the collar. "Comical?"

"Non," she said softly, running her finger down the buttons of his jacket. "Very German."

It made him laugh aloud, nodding softly.

"I think we can take it in half an inch," she said, looking up at him. "We can have it fit a bit more like a movie star."

"If you say so Madmoiselle Loewe," he said. "I trust you."

"You should," she said with a small quirk of her eyebrow. "I am très fantastique with a needle and thread."

Zoller smiled upon her, impressed by her wit and charm. Landa had described her as cold but she was the opposite. She was tough. She was strong. She was funny. She was warm.

And he wanted her.

If he hadn't let three hundred men stand between him and what he wanted in Italy, he sure as hell wouldn't let one man in Paris stop him.


	12. Chapter 12

Whatever Oscar thought Landa had said to Audrey had put the fear of God in him.

He had become obsessed with the papers.

Audrey initially had ignored it, consistently stating that she didn't have the energy to manage that. There was too much focus on her, from Landa and now Zoller. It wasn't a good idea.

But Oscar didn't agree.

"The longer he is there," he whispered to her one night, eyes pleading. "The more people who are involved… the worst it is going to get. We need to get him out of Paris. Every day he is here he is one day closer to being caught."

She had looked up at him and sighed, closing her eyes. She knew he was right in some ways, but she knew from experience that it all was a matter of timing. It was like a clockwork, it had to be precise and perfect. Each choice and movement had to flow to each other, never overlapping or stuttering. It was a feat of engineering to achieve what he was trying to achieve, and he was instead attempting to rush it.

"I think it's a bad time," she had restated softly.

"Trust me," Oscar had said, his hands softly cupping her face as he touched his lips to her forehead. She had relaxed beneath his hands and sighed, finding the pull to please him overwhelming at that moment.

She had bargained with herself that getting the papers wouldn't hurt. She could stitch them into the mattress or an old coat of Arthur's. She could hide them at home and then when the frenetic energy left Oscar, she would offer them to him and then they could make some choices together that could keep everyone safe.

That's why she decided to stay late at the Atelier and finally finish Zoller's jacket. If it was finished, then he would have no excuse to see her. He had dropped by the workshop twice in the last week to check in on the Jacket and Audrey had felt full of fear. She noticed the way his eyes watched her, and she felt a sinking dread that she had accidentally caught the attention of yet another swastika ladened man.

She had carefully considered what he liked about her, that she was strong and brave, or that she was simple and sweet and good with a needle.

She had also considered that he was awfully friendly with Joseph Goebbels, something he had bragged about to Monsieur Brodeur on a previous visit. She had actively pretended not to listen, but she had catalogued the information. It was the only name she knew of that held a higher authority than Hans Landa. She wondered quietly if she was ingratiated to Zoller, would that be enough to protect her from Landa? She also considered how valuable such knowledge would be to the Basterd's and if such unwanted attention from someone so connected could be weaponised.

What she had realised while she was lost in her thoughts was there was no clear answer, and as her hands moved without thought, she had felt a pang of pain and panic begin to swell in her chest.

She finished the final few stitches of his jacket late at night at the atelier, losing track of time entirely. She rubbed her eyes for a long moment in the lamplight, yawning softly as she took in the finished product.

Despite everything it represented, she was able to see what a perfect job she had done. Every inch of her wanted to shred it, spit on it, alight it.

But she didn't.

Instead, she sighed out, placing her needles back on her table, stretching out her tired and sore muscles.

Audrey slowly walked to the plank on the wall and begun to fiddle with it, her fingernails digging in. It popped softly, and she began to tentatively lift it, twisting her sore body closer to the ground to get a better look at the blush of fabric hiding the papers.

She froze when she heard them, her eyes fluttering to the doorway.

She heard it once more, the undeniable sound of footsteps walking up the grand staircase which led to the atelier.

She closed the board over once more, as quietly as possible, her mind running a mile a minute.

It was a heavy step, the heavy step that only a man could make.

It would either be Landa, Oscar, or Zoller.

Her mind raced, and she felt the undeniable fear run up her. She knew she couldn't stand up quick enough, her stiff and sore body would still be bent over by the time whoever was coming up the stairs arrived. Landa would sniff immediately that there was a rat, that she was on the floor for a reason.

Her mind ran with horrifying eventualities, the papers in Zoller or Landa's hand, waved in her face, the life crushed from her beneath the barrel of a gun or the curl of their fingertips.

She sunk against the wall, braced to it, and pushed her fingers to her ribs, freezing for a moment as she used her still bandaged palm to press to her mouth. She hesitated, clenching her jaw before digging her fingers deeply into the bruised and fractured side. She gasped out, silencing herself again her palm, searing agony through her as she felt the tender flesh give against her fingertips. Bile thrust forward but she swallowed it, her teeth still clenched as she felt the undeniable damage she had down crawl across her body. Tears immediately spilt from her eyes, running thick rivulets down her face as she moved her hand away from her side, pulling her legs close to her, moving her hands to cover her face.

She pretended to be startled when the door clicked, looking up and ensuring a firm look of surprise pressed her features.

Zoller stood motionless in the doorway, taking in her diminutive frame, carefully curved against the far wall, her hands hovering in front of her tear-soaked face.

"Mademoiselle Loewe?" he asked carefully, brows furrowing in concern.

She felt a shudder of relief that it was him. Of course, she would have preferred Oscar, but Zoller was no Landa and she knew she would be able to see her way out of this situation. This would be an inconvenience, not a death sentence. The tentative look on his face filled her with hope. Here was a man who was afraid of tears, not inspired to violence by them.

Audrey battered at her cheeks, pushing the thick tears out of their pathway down her bruised face, pulling her composure with a few sharp breaths.

"Bonsoir Private Zoller," she whispered, gulping away her distress. The pain radiated through her still, causing new tears to replace the old. She was quietly grateful to her body for the gift that rattled her bones, making her tears as realistic as possible. "Excuse moi. Pardon, I wasn't expecting you."

"I was going for a walk and I saw the light on," he said, gesturing to the nearby lamp. "I just wanted to check that everything is alright."

He walked towards her as though she were a wounded animal. She stayed still, sniffling and battering her tears, worrying her lip as she darted her eyes away.

"It's ok," she said, nodding more to herself than to him. "I'm just working."

"You don't look ok," he said carefully. He reached her but paused a few feet away, crouching down to take her in.

She looked devastated, the thick tears that rushed her face staining her cheeks. She looked at him apprehensively, as if she feared he may lash out at her at any moment. Landa had not confirmed who had attacked her, but he had a sneaking suspicion it was a Party man. Perhaps a spurned lover? He had felt guilty that the idea made him momentarily happy, that perhaps she was not disgusted by the uniform that he donned, like so many women in France were. Zoller watched her tentatively sink back to the wall, her knees pressed to her chest, hands carefully coming to hover in front of her brutalised neck.

He sat slowly, keeping his distance from her as she sniffled softly. He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, handing it to her slowly. She took it gingerly, murmuring 'Merci' as she wiped up any remnants of her upset. She calmed down, swallowing thickly as she looked at him once more.

"Are you ok Madmoiselle Loewe?" He asked softly.

She nodded weakly, wiping away the remainder of her tears.

"It just hurts sometimes," she said quietly.

She didn't elaborate on what that meant and he was a gentleman enough not to push her.

"Why are you working so late?" He asked, head tilting as he considered her.

"I finished your Jacket," she told him, eyes glancing at the pristine white uniform that sat atop her dress model. He glanced back and smiled, appreciating the perfection of her work.

"Merci Mademoiselle," he said. "But you did not need to rush it."

"I wanted to get it finished," she said quietly. She purposefully let her body relax ever so slightly. "Would you like to try it on?"

He paused but nodded, unsure of how to handle the situation.

"Ah Private Zoller," she said quietly, looking down. She let the burn of a blush snatch her face, much more inspired by bitter humiliation, but passed it off as embarrassment. "I… could you please help me stand?"

He nodded quickly, standing and swiftly moving to crouch beside her. She felt a frisson of fear followed by sweeping relief when his feet touched the floorboard, but he felt nothing. He looked only at her, his brown eyes intently focused upon her. She looked up and took his hand, carefully moving her legs beneath her as she stood unsteadily. She felt a fresh flood of pain run her side and she whimpered, the pathetic sound escaping her clenched teeth, eyes clenching, her bandaged hand involuntarily reaching for Zoller's forearm, clinging on to it as her body buckled. He waited patiently before helping her upright, hands staying on her as she looked up at him, blushed and tear-stained.

"I don't think you should be at work," he told her softly. She shook her head, coming to pat his chest with a friendly charm.

"Ah, but at least I am crying and getting something finished," she murmured. He laughed softly at her self deprecation, following her to the model. She gestured and leant back against the table, her body grateful for the support.

He tried it on swiftly, stripping from his boring brown jacket and donning the shining uniform with a quick change.

It fit like a glove.

She watched him move his body about, admiring her work with a fresh boyish grin. She tilted her head towards the large mirror across the room and he hesitated, glancing between her and it.

"May I?" He asked. She gestured with a smile, watching him preen himself in front of the mirror, thrilled with the outcome.

"You are incroyable," he called back, eyeing every inch of perfect form-fitting material. "Superb craftsmanship Madmoiselle Loewe. You are truly gifted."

"Merci," she said easily, hands wrapping the edge of the table behind her, a small smile pressed to her face. She pushed down the rage that she once again had to stitch the uniforms of the men who had stolen her life from her. She closed her eyes for a moment to steady herself, looking up to see him still enjoying the view.

"Would you like to take it now?" She politely asked.

"Non, I'll retrieve it tomorrow," he said with a smile. "Settle my account, of course."

She smiled tiredly and nodded, her hands still clutching the bench behind her.

"Are you finished for the day then, Mademoiselle?" He asked. She nodded, stretching her neck and softly rubbing her right eye.

"How are you getting home?" He asked conversationally as he passed the jacket back to her. She tentatively placed it back on the dress form, exhaustion hitting her.

"I will walk," she sighed softly.

"Mademoiselle," he said carefully. "It's 9.30."

She looked up, eyebrows furrowed before her face fell, furious with herself that she had let herself lose track of time. She never did that. She was meticulous and careful, but her body and mind were so clouded by stress and pain that she could see how she had let the time pass by.

"Ah," she said, stepping away and sitting on the nearby stool. "It's ok, I'll sleep here."

Zoller let his brow rise, taking her in.

He had never seen anyone look so tired. She was still black and blue, her body curved over in a subconscious choice to protect herself. She looked up, her elbow on her knee as her chin rested in her palm with a small smile.

"Thank you for telling me Monsior Zoller," she said.

"I can walk you home."

There was a beat of silence as she stared at him, unsure of what to say.

"We are not held to the curfew," he said. "And if anyone stops us, I'll gladly explain you were finishing my uniform for me."

"I don't know-"

"Please Mademoiselle," he interrupted. "I would like to."

She considered it for a long moment before nodding, standing tentatively and smiling weakly at him. Fredrick retried her basket for her, ignoring her protests to carry it. She put on her coat and he held his arm to her. She hesitated before placing her fingers in the crook of his arm, silently grateful for the physical support, feeling hateful that she needed it at all.

He spoke aimlessly for a while. He liked movies, he loved the films of Max Linder, he found him charming and thrilling. He loved the director Georg Wilhelm Pabst and Leni Riefenstahl. Audrey didn't know much of any of what he spoke of, not having attended a cinema in four years, but instead she smiled politely, watching him with polite adherence.

"What do you like Madmoiselle Loewe?" He asked after a very long monologue of his cinematic interests.

The pace they took was slow and leisurely, Audrey's battered ankle and frame not able to tolerate anything faster.

"I like Robert Southey," she said.

"The poet?" He asked in surprise. She nodded. She knew Hans Landa would have seen the book that Oscar bought her, fully aware that someone would have watched that very public afternoon. She felt comfortable telling Zoller this, unfused if it were to snakes it way back to Hans Landa.

"Oui," she said. "I find him very cathartic."

"And do you like movies?" He asked. She considered for a moment before nodding.

"My father liked movies," she confided. She watched for his reaction but he did nothing but smile pleasantly.

"I liked Camielle," she said. Zoller gave a knowing smile at the answer. "I cried very much when she died."

"Any other films?"

"I really liked It all happened one night, I think Clark Gabel is very handsome," she mused.

"He's very charming," Zoller agreed.

"But he does always play a bit of a bully," she said with a scowl. Zoller Chuckled, watching her think quietly.

"Any others?" He prompted.

"Oh, and my favourite film is the bride of Frankenstein," she laughed. "Embarrassing, non?"

"Really!" He laughed, thrown by the answer. "Why?"

"I don't know!" She laughed. "I was so frightened! But it was also strangely romantic? I know it is so silly, but I really adore it. Valarie Hobson is a delight."

"Oui," he chuckled.

"I liked her hair," she hummed.

Zoller laughed once more and she looked up with an easy smile.

"A varied taste," he said, silently impressed by her choices. "Do you like Linder?"

"I like Chaplin," she said.

"Ah, I have always preferred Linder!" Zoller said.

"Non!" Audrey scolded. "Think of the kid, the lion cage, the non-sense song! Come now, do you have no taste!"

He conceded on her point about the Kid, chuckling at the fact she had told him off.

When they arrived at her apartment he had kissed her hand and bowed to her.

"Merci for the company Madmoiselle Loewe," he had said with a fresh boyish grin.

"Merci for the same," Audrey said with a smile. "And for getting me home."

She had let the smile fall only when she was halfway up the stairs, a frisson of pure rage running across her. These men, these uniformed bullies who thought that her time, her mind, and her body belonged to them. How stupid they all were. How pathetic. Zoller looked at her as though he were a puppy dog but she knew the word 'Jew' would be enough to end it all. How utterly sickening he was. A mix of them all, their perfect hair and uniforms, filled into her mind and she felt her jaw set hard with hatred. She hoped she was the one to hand them over to the Basterd's. She'd ask Aldo the Apache if she could scalp Hans Landa herself. A twitch of a smile hit her as she imagined lifting the skin and hair from his skull.

She was so lost in her raged filled thoughts as she shut the front door behind her that when her name was called she had dropped her basket.

"Where were you."

She looked up to see an agitated Oscar in the hallway, glaring her down.

"Work-"

"It's after nine-thirty," he interrupted, eyes wide and wild. "Did you walk?"

"Zoller walked me home," she began. "He found me when I was trying to get the papers, so I hid them again and-"

"You're always telling me to be careful," Oscar interrupted, looking furious. "Always telling me, and now you're fraternising-"

"What?"

"Oh no, wait, flirting," Oscar spat. "Flirting with the enemy-"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Audrey cursed, suddenly filled with rage.

"I could hear you two through the open window," he spat, sneering at her. "I supposed it is easy to feel full of righteous anger until the enemy is handsome-"

"Watch your fucking mouth," Audrey hissed as she stormed forward, pushing Oscar hard in the chest.

"So, what, you two are friends now?"

She tried to slap him, but he snatched her wrist and backed her to the wall behind her, pinning her hand between them.

"Oscar-"

"I am trying to save a life," Oscar said, eyes wild and frightened and angry.

"Oscar-"

"I am trying to help you-"

"You are hurting me-"

"You have no idea how dangerous this is," he continued, ignoring her, his hand shaking against her wrist. "How much trouble we are in. You have no idea what I am trying to do to keep us alive-"

"Oscar-"

The pain was dragging through her body and she felt nauseated by it, bile rumbled in her, her eyes losing focus against the onslaught that his body pressure was placed against her newly damaged ribs.

"You need to get those papers-"

"Get off-"

"You need to stop flirting with the fucking enemy!"

She vomited on him and he stumbled back as she slumped down the wall to the floor with a loud thud, her arms coming to wrap against her ribs as she let out a choked gasp of relief. Her head lay against the hardwood as she tried to make her breathing shallow, her arms wrapping to protect her.

"Audrey?"

He was knelt in front of her, trying to push her hair from her face so he could look at her.

"Audrey, Audrey what happened? Audrey, did he hurt you? Audrey?"

"Get away from me," she whispered, curling closer against her aching side. She could smell the sick in her hair as she curled in, her eyes clenched closed. His hands stilled on her and she felt the trickle of a tear run down her face.

"Audrey I'm sorry," he whispered. "Christ I'm... Audrey, I'm…."

"I tried to get the papers but Zoller showed up," she murmured. "I had to hurt myself to make myself cry, to try and distract of why I was even on the floor at all…"

There was a pained silence between them both.

"Audrey I'm sorry," he whispered. "Can I see? Can I look?"

She shook her head and curled herself closer, her knees coming to her chest as she tried her best to shield herself from him. From the entire world.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "God Audrey… we just… we need those papers."

She felt the tears drag down her face as she shook her head, her eyes closed.

"Go away Oscar," she whispered. He did as she asked, hesitantly but eventually leaving her be.

She had stayed there well into the night, her mind spiralling as she considered every terrible decision that had led her to that position.

She had nowhere to go and no way of getting out.


	13. Chapter 13

It had taken Audrey the best part of a few hours to finally pull herself up from the floor. She had heard his footsteps nearby for the entire time, timidly watching her catatonic state with the same expression she had seen so many times before:

_She's broken._

Any warmness she felt for him had bled out against the floor. She couldn't bear to take him in as she dragged herself to her bed, laying atop the blankets despite the cold, her arms wrapped tightly against her throbbing ribs.

It has been a restless few hours in the dark, alone. She drifted in and out of fitful sleep, each dream ending with her life being snuffed by Hans Landa. By dawn she knew she needed Oscar to look at the damage she had done, her breathing was still shallow, and her bones ached, so she had called for him in a bitter and resentful '_Oscar_'.

He was in the doorway in a matter of seconds, clearly not having slept a wink as he watched her timidly, eyes darting about as she sat on the edge of the bed. She was dishevelled, her face exhausted, and her body curved inward to protect her battered form from any further assault.

"Are you ok?" He whispered against the holy light of the early dawn.

"I think I've really hurt myself," she said matter of factly, eyes burning against him. "I need you to check."

He nodded earnestly and crept forward, kneeling by the bed before pausing. He watched her for permission and she tersely nodded as he scooped up her blouse, watching the flinch on her face as he studied the newly formed bruises she had created. He could see where her own fingers had gouged in, the skin still swollen and angry, looking foreign against her bones as it shifted with every minute movement.

"You'll need to bandage it," he told her quietly. "I can do that. Audrey… you… you really hurt yourself…."

"I told you," she said quietly, her voice positively hateful.

"I know," he conceded. He had wrapped her fresh with a large bandage around her waist, stabilising her so each movement wouldn't harm her so much. He'd told her to rest, laying her down on her side, the bed pressing against the tender flesh in an equally comforting but painful embrace.

To his credit, he had left her alone. She had spent her Sunday morning asleep on her side instead of praying in church, restless but desperate for the embrace of darkness. It had come to an end when Oscar had asked her to take two foreign tablets, held in the centre of his palm. She had, despite the hesitation, because the siren song of sleep was too much to say no to. She had slept uninterrupted for the rest of the day and night. Oscar had paused to watch her several times over, burning guilt to see the tiny woman curled to herself, crushed beneath the weight of sleep and pain and a million other unspoken hardships.

She had returned to work on Monday without any fanfare, ignoring entirely Oscar's exasperation that she should be still.

"If you want those papers," she bit back as she tied her wool scarf around her neck. "Then I need to go to work. Goodbye Oscar."

She had seen the shame consume him as he didn't argue, and she had shaken her head with such disappointment he had felt his heart hurt.

Audrey let the cool air burn her cheeks as she slowly walked down the quiet Paris streets. She had left half an hour early, aware that her aching and bruised skin would add time to her usually brisk and short walk. She tried to distract her mind as she travelled, thinking back on more pleasant times. A rare indulgence. Audrey had learnt to the best of her knowledge to snuff the past and the pleasant, but on occasion when it all became too much she would retreat into those warm and sweet memories and feel embraced by their pastel glow. She let herself remember her thirteenth birthday. Her mother had made a cake and a challah, her father had bought her some poetry books, first editions, all in their original languages. It had been the three of them at first and her mother had performed a strange and impromptu bat mitzvah at the kitchen table, much to the amusement of Audrey's decidedly unbelieving father. It had been a hodgepodge of Russian and Hebrew, none of it really what a Rabbi would prescribe, but her mother had been intent on making sure her daughter knew she was a woman while sat at that wooden table. That night their neighbours and friends had come and gathered in the warm and well-lit kitchen. Her mother had had too much wine and had sung happy birthday in Russian, clapping along to the line 'С днём рождения тебя!' which only served to deeply confuse the Luxembourgish neighbours and friends, and was sung with such sincerity the thirteen-year-old Audrey had begun to laugh aloud, tears rolling down her face as her mother had held her face and softly sung '_Y'varech'cha Adonai_' in Hebrew against her daughter's forehead in front of the entire confused yet bemused party. Audrey remembered whispering the phrase '_Ani ohevet otah'_ to her mother and her mother saying it back, her mother's beautiful dark hair curtaining across Audrey and for a brief second the world being closed out. _I love you_. She was so young but even then, she knew the power that the strange sounds of Hebrew had. The sacred way she could speak to her mother, shrouded for just the two of them. For a fleeting second, Audrey had the overpowering memory of her mother's scent. Sweet and bitter like cardamom, burnt sugar and coffee.

Audrey quietly startled as the sound of a rumbling engine interrupted her daydreaming. It shattered from her mind's eye, draining to black as she blinked and glanced up to see the familiar glossy black car crawling beside her. She didn't slow her already slow rate, instead, she glanced it and continued as though she hadn't seen it at all, not needing to view his face to know which Nazi sat in the luxurious confines of that staff car.

"Salut Audrey!" She heard his familiar voice call from the car.

"Bonjour Colonel Landa," she called, her eyes forward. "Comment ça va?"

"Très bien Audrey, Merci," he chuckled loudly. "Ça va?"

"Oui," was her one-worded answer. He laughed so loudly she had flinched without her permission, wincing at the way of her body moved beneath her pained skin.

"How about you Zoller?" She heard Landa say. "Ça va?"

Audrey slowed to a pause, the car pausing beside her as her eyes drifted up to see the two of them sat in the back of the car. Zoller was watching her timidly from the far side of the car, his head tilted forward to catch a view of her. Audrey turned and walked slowly, her hands coming to rest against the open window, her fingers wrapping around the frame. She leant down carefully, looking past Landa and directly at Zoller.

"Bonjour Frederick Zoller," she said, making her voice soft. "Comment ça va?"

"Très Bien," he said, a twitch of a smile reaching his face.

"How can I help you, Colonel Landa?" She said, turning her gaze to his with a familiar and tired smile.

"Non non non non," he scolded, a deep growl of a chuckle rumbling at her question. "How can we help you, Audrey? Zoller told me all about finding you on the floor, and you are back to work already?"

She watched a flush catch Zoller's face but dragged her eyes back to Landa.

"My ribs aren't healing as well as I had hoped," she said quietly, her eyes dipping in a sign of embarrassment. "I apologise to you, Private Zoller. It was not very professional of me-"

"Oh Audrey, Non!" Frederick interrupted, eyes swelling in shock. "Non, not at all, non non, just concern that is all!"

"Very well," Audrey murmured. "Regardless… désolée. Can I be of any further assistance messieurs?"

The sincerity that she was able to conjure across her pretty face made Landa smirk softly. She had an uncanny ability to immediately soften that cold and contoured face of hers, making it young and sweet and gentle. He watched it with delight to see her eyelashes flutter, her lips softly part with a sad and sorry smile. He was well versed in using a friendly expression to disarm someone, but she had one better in that soft and sweet demeanour she could so easily slip into. He could see the twitch in Zoller, could see the young man wished to leap from the car and protect her. He wondered how many Nazi soldiers she had twisted without effort, turned to serve her. He quietly envied such a strong skill to manipulate.

"Audrey, let us give you a ride, oui?" Landa said, calmly patting her hand that curled around the window frame.

"Oh non," she murmured with a little smile. "Oscar told me I need to exercise if I want to get better."

"How is Oscar?" Zoller blurted.

"Well," Audrey said breezily. "I need to walk Colonel Landa, Merci for the offer."

"Well, then we will walk with you," Landa said with a benevolent smile and clap of his gloved hands. She caught the cruel little smirk that caught his mouth. She let a small smile twitch her lips at his absolute boldness before she nodded.

"If you wish," She said, stepping away from the car a little too swiftly. Landa saw the flinch that hit her. He knew that she was in terrible shape. He had seen it first hand, the injuries that Klutch had inflected were one's intent on causing death and destruction. Despite that, she still stood tall, smiling genially as Zoller leapt from the car and jogged to be by her side.

"I hope Oscar wasn't too worried about you being home late?" He said in a soft voice, watching her reaction carefully as Landa slowly climbed from the car, dusting off his hat before placing it atop his head.

"Ah… we had a little fight about it…" Audrey said softly. She had considered this at length. The fight had been loud and if the window was open she was sure it would have floated down to the waiting ears of one Frederick Zoller.

"I'm sorry Audrey," he said with a soft twist of his mouth. "I should have walked you up, I should have explained-"

"Explained what?" Landa asked as he came to stand half an inch too close to her. Audrey frowned quietly, fully aware that Zoller would have told him that already.

"I had a fight with Oscar," Audrey said unemotionally. Landa gave his characteristically animated frown, almost pouting at her.

"Shame," he cooed.

"He is jealous," she said, with such finality that she saw Zoller flush in the corner of her gaze. Landa gestured gracefully and she nodded, walking as fast as her aching form could travel and her two companions carefully strolled beside her. Landa's hands pressed into his coat pockets and she watched his eyes flit across the street, enjoying the early sunshine. Zoller's hand hovered behind her lower back, his eyes watching her carefully with such compassion that it made her hate him even more.

"Private Zoller said you did a wonderful job on his coat," Landa mused.

"Merci," Audrey responded lightly, her eyelids heavy as she focused on each step. The rising tension of being pressed between two Nazis, the whole of Paris watching her amiably walk with such monsters, laid heavy against her already aching bones. She did not need the reminder at present in her damaged body. She willed away the creeping pain, the press of her injured ribs against the bandage, jolted by each new step.

"Did you always want to be a seamstress?" Zoller asked. She glanced up, the small talk grating her already agonised nerves.

"Non," Audrey said politely. "I wanted to be a nurse."

"Oh!" Zoller said politely. She glanced to see surprise hit his handsome face. "What happened?"

"She had a change of circumstance," Landa interrupted with a dark chuckle. She saw the understanding flash across Zoller's face and he threw her an apologetic look. They had walked in silence after that but she felt the burning gaze of Zoller upon her. She did her best to look unaffected, but she was sure the pain was beginning to radiate from her. She glanced to see the joy on Landa's face that he had sunk everyone into such discomfort. She found his inability to allow any joy almost interesting. She had never met anyone so free of moral. He appeared to her to be living only on nerve and impulse, and each of those seemed to be pointed towards self-preservation with the cost of destruction for all else.

It had been a shout that had pierced the awkward trio. She watched Zoller's head snap to the sound while Landa's lazily drifted his eyes over to the scene.

It was a young woman and a child, the argument flaring between her and the two young Nazi soldiers. The child looked increasingly distressed, particularly when it escalated to one of the soldiers shoving the young woman.

"Colonel Landa," Audrey said quietly. "Stop them."

"Excuse me?" He asked, letting a burst of laughter roll from him without shame.

"They're going to hurt her," Audrey continued. "Colonel Landa, stop them."

She could feel Zoller tense beside her as the abuse increased, a heavier shove being levelled against the woman who looked no older than a teenager.

Landa watched her intently as Audrey stared up, looking exhausted.

The child cried out as a hand came down on him, and Audrey snapped to action without thought.

"Halt!" Audrey yelled in German, her feet carrying her without her consent across the road. "Stop that! Stop it!"

She could hear the woman talking in quick Russian and she felt a stab of familiar care. She knew they hadn't seen Zoller or Landa yet, because the two continued to smoke and smirk, chuckling viciously at the brave Audrey who ran forward without concern.

"What's wrong?" Audrey asked in Russian, watching a flicker of worry hit the young soldiers faces.

"I am a nanny," the young woman snapped, tears of frustration rushing down her face. "Of a diplomat, I'm just trying to get him to school-"

"What is she saying?" The young soldier bit at Audrey.

"What is the diplomat's name?" Audrey interrupted in Russian, ignoring him entirely.

"Aleksandr Bogomolov," the woman answered. The child went to speak but the solider shoved him hard. Audrey moved without thought, stepping between the child and the young soldier.

"Excuse me," Audrey snapped in German. "This is the governess of Aleksandr Bogomolov, you'd be a fool to lay another hand on her-"

"A fool?" He bit with a laugh. She heard the anger flow through him and she felt her body continue to move without thought, right into harm's way. Her hand moved to hold the boy behind her.

"Ja," Audrey repeated steadily. "You value your comforts? Your liberties? Put another hand on these two, I can assure you your commanding officers will strip them all from you-"

"What about you?" The other one called. Audrey's head whipped back.

"What?" She said, brow furrowing.

"You, you're a filthy fucking kommunistisch," he spat, anger taking over him as he flicked the cigarette away.

"I'm Luxembourgish-"

"Why do you speak such good Russian then?" The first one called. Audrey looked back, feeling the nerve run down her spine. She turned to call for Landa but she felt the strangers hand collide with her mouth, the back of his hand causing a sharp shock of sound to radiate from her skin. She heard a shout, but the soldier ignored it, ordering her to get away from the child. She moved without thought to protect the boy and a sharp punch had reached Audrey's already tender ribs. She felt such pain that her vision fizzled for a moment, a little gasp leaving her lips as she fell forward, her arms wrapped around herself.

Audrey heard Zoller shout again as she rolled forward onto her knees, her eyesight shorting for a second longer as the solider behind her cursed loudly in shock at her two companions.

"Audrey?" Zoller was whispering, his hands on her back as she curled one arm to her rib, her hand pressed to the asphalt beneath her.

"I'm ok," Audrey was whispering. She felt the pain shiver through her as she fought to keep her bile at bay.

"What is this?" She heard Landa lazily call.

She heard the boots scuff the ground as they leapt to attention, their arms flying high as the yelled: "heil".

"Audrey," Zoller worried.

"Frederick I'm fine," she whispered, a cold sweat hitting her as she sunk further to the ground, clutching her injured side.

She looked up through her forward fallen hair to see Landa lazily walking forward.

"She's the governess to a Russian Diplomat," Audrey whispered in French, feeling her teeth clench and her jaw stiffen. "That's his son Colonel Landa-"

"Is that true?" Landa said with a little smile, interrupting her with a look of wild delight.

"Do you speak French?" Landa asked the little boy. He nodded timidly, moving closer to the governess. "Who is your father?"

"Aleksandr Bogomolov," the little boy said softly. Landa let his brows shoot up, nodding softly.

"Good catch Audrey," he said with a soft laugh. "Well done."

Zoller crowded her and pulled her to her feet and Audrey felt hateful as herself for feeling her fingers sink against the uniform of the Nazi private, her legs painfully weak beneath her.

"On you go," Landa was gesturing condescendingly to the nanny and the boy. The woman's eyes shot between Landa and Audrey and Landa let a nasty smile spread.

"Russian only?" He asked. The woman tentatively nodded.

"Audrey," Landa said with a literal snap of his fingers. "Translate, oui?"

Audrey nodded weakly, her eyes unfocused as she felt Zoller's too familiar form crowding her further, one hand on her back, the other hovering on front of her as she sunk her hands to his forearm.

"Tell her Colonel Landa valiantly ceased this ordeal," he said swiftly. Audrey let a twitch of derision hit her face before she turned to the young woman.

"He says, he stopped this," Audrey said in perfect Russian.

"Nyet," the woman said, shaking her head in confession. "You did."

"Nyet?" Landa asked.

"She said I did," Audrey uttered in French.

"Ah," he chuckled. "An honest Russian? A rare treasure. Tell her she is to say exactly what I have said."

"You're to say what he said," Audrey translated.

"Nyet," the young woman said, becoming increasingly upset. "They hurt you. Are you ok? Do you want to come with us?"

"Come with us," the little boy blurted in Russian, nodding emphatically in tune with his nanny.

"Audrey?" Zoller whispered.

"What are they saying, Audrey?" Landa asked, a sly grin hitting his face. He was delighted to not know what was being said, though from the increasing panic in her eyes he could see that it wasn't anything that would benefit or preserve the life of one Audrey Loewe.

"You say that Hans Landa saved you, and punished these two little, pathetic Nazi boys," Audrey said, an intensity hitting her tone.

"Sestra," the young woman said. "Master Bogomolov is a very powerful man-"

"Nyet," Audrey begun.

"He can protect you-"

"Sestra please," Audrey interrupted, eyes beginning to swell with panic.

"These Nazi's would not dare stand against the might of Russia," the woman continued, her voice furious with national pride. "You are to come with us, you-"

"Hans Landa is the Jew Hunter," Audrey interrupted in harsh Russian tones.

Landa watched the emotion and passion run dry from the nanny, her eyes swelling as she suddenly yanked the boy close to her.

"Jew Hunter," Audrey restated in perfect Russian, her eyes imploring. "Please…. Sestra. Please."

The woman nodded softly.

"What is happening Audrey?" Landa called calmly, smiling softly to watch the stress eat away at the strangers in front of him.

"She'll do it," Audrey whispered, her eyes still burning to the young woman. "She understands."

"Good girl Audrey," Landa said with a small chuckle.

The praise felt like someone had poured acid over her skin and she felt the strong bile of hatred rush up her.

Landa waved the two men off in German and stayed still as he watched the young nanny rush away, the little boy held tight to her grip.

Audrey stood, her jaw still tense as she held her nerve against her agonised side.

"You're not healing very well at all are you, Audrey," he tutted as she tried to straighten herself.

"Shouldn't you have disciplined those boys, Herr Landa?" Zoller asked quietly.

"That sounded suspiciously like a junior officer challenging a senior officer," Landa said with a chuckle.

"No… no of course not Herr Landa," Zoller said awkwardly. "But they… they really hurt Miss Loewe."

"They did," Landa agreed.

The tension lay between the three and Audrey let out a soft sigh.

"They didn't know that I was with you," she uttered tiredly, eyes down and fixated on the asphalt below her. "They think I'm just an angry Russian woman."

"You can't punish a man for something he doesn't know," Landa agreed pleasantly.

Audrey couldn't help the bristle and nasty breathe of laughter that left her at his comment, glancing up with pure derision that Landa would say something like that.

"You're right, Herr Landa, no disrespect intended," Zoller said quietly, eyes dropping down to Audrey who struggled to stand upward once more.

"No disrespect felt Zoller," he said softly, a nasty smile starting to spread his face. "It is hard to think clearly when you're so smitten isn't it?"

Zoller's face burned at the comment, eyes darting away as Audrey glared down Landa, her arm wrapped to her side. She attempted to straighten, but she froze against the weight of her pain, a sharp breath echoing from her throat.

"Audrey, I think you need to go to the hospital," Zoller said, the blush still scorching him.

"Non," Audrey said, fluttering him away with a wave her hand. "It's bark is worse than the bite, I promise."

She turned a sweet smile to Zoller, straightening up as best she could.

"She is not a woman you can pester Private Zoller," Landa laughed, flicking him away from Audrey. Audrey slowly moved, her whole body looking pained as she willed it away from her face, smiling amiably at them both.

"I'm going to be late gentleman," she smiled, starting the stride without concern, causing Landa to bark out a laugh.

The party of three had been silent for the most part. Zoller had blushed with embarrassment that his smitten behaviour had been so blatantly called out by Landa with such brash ambivalence, and Landa had held his gaze at Audrey with a hawk-like intensity that made her blood run cold.

Landa had sunk the talons in when they'd reached the front the atelier.

"You won't get up the stairs."

"Excuse moi?" She asked, blinking in surprise at the puncture in the silence.

"Mademoiselle," he said softly, false concern coating his words. "You look weak."

"I'm fine-"

"You look broken Audrey."

He said it so surely and he watched the anger spark on her expression. The silence of her face and the hatred in her eyes spoke louder than anything she could have said.

_'And whose fault is that.' _

He held his arm out to her, ignoring her screaming silence and smirked when her hand took the crook of his arm, eyes downcast to try and mask some of her growing rage from the prying eyes of Zoller.

It had been a slow ascended up the stairs, Landa stoking her rage by leaving her nothing but silence. She had kept her eyes down when he led her into the room, bristling at the silence that overtook the pleasant chatter. Staff and patrons alike lay silent in his wake and Audrey caught a view of herself in the nearby mirror, understanding exactly what had set the silence into motion.

She looked deathly pale, her bent body signalling her agony and pain to everyone in the room that she was a 'victim' and that Landa was the likely perpetrator. She looked exhausted, emotionally and physically, dark lines beneath her eyes and her gaze clearly dusted with tears.

"Ah Monsieur Landa!" Brodeur called, his face gleaming with greed as he rushed forward to warmly shake Landa's hand.

"Apologies Monsieur Brodeur," Landa said with a smile, looking condescendingly to Audrey. "Mademoiselle Lowe was struck in the ribs by an officer, due to a misunderstanding. She truly is the unluckiest young woman I have ever met!"

Landa interrupted himself with a sharp burst of laughter, eyes gleaming in delight to see Monsieur Brodeur smile unsurely, eyes glossing the pain-filled Audrey who appeared to be struggling to stand.

"Audrey, would you like to sit?" Brodeur said softly. Audrey watched the surprise spread among her co-workers that he would speak to her with any style of kindness, the act so rare she could see Madame Halphen was blinking as though she had hallucinated it.

"S'il vous plaît," Audrey said quietly. She looked to Landa who smiled with fox-like thrill, gesturing easily for her to pass him and sit down. She shrugged off her coat with a wince, requiring help from one of the other young seamstresses to pull on the white coat she donned with expertise. She was very gentle with her aching form as she lowered herself to the stool, focusing on her work, her mind focusing on the black coat in front of her as she returned to her needle and thread.

She could hear the murmur between Landa and Monsieur Brodeur but she did her best to drown it out, her mind screaming in pain and unable to tolerate more of Landa's nonsense.

"**Adieu Audrey!" **

His voice tore through the quiet atelier, and she jumped with a start, a gasp leaving her as she blinked out, eyes filling with tears of pain.

She didn't look up at his laughter, focusing entirely on her work instead.

"Audrey?" She heard Monsieur Brodeur ask quietly moments later. She looked up, watching past him to see Landa saunter out the door, disappearing to continue his terrorism of Paris. She looked up at her boss, suddenly more exhausted than she had ever been. "Are you ok?"

"I just want to work Monsoir Brodeur," he said quietly, barely able to make herself speak. "That is all. I'm sorry for the disruption."

"No need to apologise Audrey," he said uncomfortably, his eyes landing on her still bruised neck. "If you need to go home-"

"I don't," She interrupted softly, feeling a flare of rage to think of Oscar's concerned face if she were to grace her door an hour after leaving from work with yet another fresh forming bruise. "I just want to work."

Brodeur had nodded, leaving her alone to focus solely on her work. She was exhausted, but she stayed still for hours on end, stitching each stitch perfectly into each garment that was placed in front of her, eyelids heavy from agony but her gaze focused with a need for distraction.

She had stayed long after everyone had left and had dug the papers out of the floorboards with nil concern, breaking a nail and catching a splinter in the process. She stitched them into her coat and walked home with her head down, fast as her aching body would carry her. She had burst through the door, slamming it open to see Oscar scamper from the kitchen, eyes flashed with worry. She had shrugged off her coat, completely forgetting her pain for a moment as she ripped the collar of her coat and snatched the papers, face flushed with rage.

"I am finished," She snarled out, eyes wild as he stared almost frozen in surprise. She shoved them to his chest and he caught them, blinking in shock. "With Zoller, with Landa, with you-"

"Audrey-"

"I am done!" She interrupted, the rage crawling all over her, blinding her to anything other than wanting to satisfy the spitting anger in her stomach. "I will help you with these papers, and then I never want to see you again. Do you understand me, Oscar?"

"Audrey-"

"You hurt me," She continued, eyes ablaze with such certainty she watched him wilt beneath her gaze. "You hurt me as they did, and I don't want to ever see you again. So, I will help you and then you're banished. Do you understand?"

She watched the will to fight drain from him and he let himself do a defeated nod, eyes dropping down.

She walked past him, slamming the bedroom door as she went before sinking against it and wrapping her arms around her aching side, clenching her eyes closed. Whatever the future held for her, no matter what risks she was willing to take for the Bastards and France, she knew that she would never allow a man to touch her like that ever again.


	14. Chapter 14

"Merci."

"Shush," Audrey uttered, shooting an imploring look to the young boy. He looked ashamed for a moment and she softened, pulling him close to her and wrapping an arm about his shoulders.

"Never say thank you for someone doing the right thing," she said softly. "Never. Do you understand? The right thing should never come at a cost to you, ok?"

He nodded softly, nuzzling close to her as the walked leisurely down the Parisian street. He was a lot smaller than she was expecting, but then she remembered how starved and small stress and pain and loss had made her. She recalled the shape of her wrists, just skin and bone, her cheeks looking as though it was taut fabric stretched across boning in a bodice. She had looked worse than this young man, covered in her parent's blood, and she felt a stab of guilt for even the mild judgement of 'small'. The world had made him small.

She had arrived with the papers at the nondescript apartment that Sunday morning and had felt panic to see the young man there. She had scolded Oscar that it was idiocy to have her, the papers, and the boy in one place, but Oscar had been unrelenting in his reasoning. She was to walk this little boy, as it would be too obvious if it were him. Her? She looked like a nanny. She looked as though she could be looking after him or a governess. She was naturally easy to look away from, especially now that her face was healing well and her neck was covered with a scarf.

Oscar would take the papers.

She would take the boy.

They'd meet at L'église de la Madeleine, the large and dark pillars of the church the perfect hiding space for their plan, and then the unknown contact would take the boy and the papers and whisk him from France.

She would have argued, she would have refused, but the boy's dark eyes had burned her, hungry and frightened and desperate, and she had recalled those feelings in her nineteen-year-old self and felt helpless.

She had said 'oui' and taken him.

Eli was small and sweet and soft. She marvelled at that, his ability to look upon her kindly. She felt as though kindness had left her when she was in his position, but perhaps youth served him well. The streets were the perfect amount of full in the Sunday sun, and she held him close as they walked slowly but not-too-slowly.

"How do you know Doctor Clément?" Eli asked, unable to sit in the silence.

"He is my boyfriend," Audrey said, unwilling and unable to explain whatever mess her relation to Oscar was now.

"Oh," Eli said, his eyes wide and interested. "Do you love him?"

"He loves me I think," Audrey said with a soft sigh. "I am not sure how I feel."

"I think you should love him," Eli said quietly. "He is very kind. He is very good. He is saving me-"

"He is doing the right thing," Audrey repeated, sterner then she intended to. "You should never love or reward for the right thing, Eli."

"Of course," Eli said, blushing and dropping his head. "Sorry."

"And never say sorry," Audrey said quietly, squeezing his shoulder once more. "Ever. Do you understand? You have never done anything wrong. France, Europe, the world has done you wrong. Never say sorry."

Eli looked momentarily steeled by such reasoning, nodding firmly, suddenly looking like an eleven-year-old, not a child. They walked slowly, eyes downcast, his arms sneaking to wrap around her waist. She wondered how long it had been since he had been held, treated with some kindness and some tenderness. Audrey was by no means warm, but she felt herself soften at his touch, her cheek coming to rest at the top of his head momentarily.

"In my faith… there is a woman called Deborah," Eli whispered. Audrey felt her heart still, the memory of this prophetess who her mother had revered and spoken of with such kind love so often throughout her childhood, that the memory seemed entwined with that of Audrey's mother. Indistinguishable from one another. "She is the woman of torches. She brings God by connecting us, solving our problems. You are like her. You are a woman of torches."

Audrey felt the tear slip without meaning to, battering it away with a breath of laughter.

"That is very kind Eli," she said. "But not true. Deborah was a warrior, and she conquered Canaan, I do not believe I have ever been so brave."

She felt Eli's eyes burn her, the recognition of her knowledge burning his gaze.

"But you are Aryan," he whispered excitedly, his eyes shooting between her blonde hair and her blue eyes.

"Have you seen Michelangelo's Prophet _Daniel_?" She asked. Eli shook his head, eyes shining with wild silent delight. "He is blonde-haired, blue-eyed. He is still a prophet."

"_You are like me_," Eli whispered excitedly. "Does Doctor Clément know?"

She shook her head.

"Only you," She whispered, unsure why she was sharing but feeling an immense feeling of calm that she had. "And now we carry each other's secrets. Just as we should. A _Berakhah_, of sorts. God led us to each other, perhaps?"

"Amen," Eli whispered, fizzing with excitement at the discovery.

There was a pinched silence before he blurted it.

"Come with me?"

"Excuse Moi?" Audrey asked, glancing him. His eyes shone with a commitment to his statement, his heart thundering in his little body that he would be so brave.

"Come with me."

He was firmer in his conviction.

"Eli-"

"You are my _achot_-"

"Eli-"

"It means sister-"

"I know what it means," Audrey said with a breath of laughter, smiling softly at him. "I have to stay. France needs me."

"France hates us," he said quietly, suddenly looking angry. "It hates you, it hates me. Leave it."

"It hates us," she agreed quietly. "But it is not enough of a reason to hate it back, you understand? Did your parents ever teach you about _qārā_?"

Eli nodded softly.

"It is my _qārā_ to stay here in Paris," she whispered, the church coming in to view down the long grey street.

"What is my _qārā_?" Eli asked, his voice sounding unsure once more.

"To survive," she said, smiling softly at him. He nodded quietly, cuddling close to her once more.

"Ok," he agreed quietly, hurt at her rejection, but accepting of her reasoning. They walked the last few steps in silence, his eyes burning the floor in front of him.

"My _qārā_ is to keep your secret," he whispered. She glanced at him and watched the hardness and purpose in his eyes.

"_Toda Raba_," Audrey softly blessed. "You have a wonderful soul Eli. Never lose it."

He nodded firmly, and she steeled herself, trying to look calm and serene for him as they walked the steps of the church, slowly entering the hallowed building together.

It looked like the painting she had imagined. There stood Oscar, by the alter, watching intently, the papers in hand. She stepped forward, smiling easily at Oscar, her hardened heart softening ever so slightly to see what Oscar would do to protect this child.

She opened her mouth to speak but it all happened so fast the voice was ripped from her.

Eli suddenly was not at her side, a hand wrapped in her hair, tugging her swiftly from the young boy who yelled out in terror, eyes swelled as an arm wrapped his throat, pulling him into easily to the front of the aisle, holding him still feet away from Oscar. Oscar, who let his eyes drift down in shame, unable to take in the scene.

It was the flash of brown uniform that made her blood freeze, words leaving her as her eyes swelled. She was being dragged to the front of the church, and she fought despite the hopelessness of the situation. She let out a shriek of pain when an elbow collided with her side, trying to still her.

"Careful with her," a voice tutted. "She is bruised like a peach!"

She looked up, ignoring everyone else to see Landa walk slowly, smiling like the cat that got the cream. His eyes burned black against her, thrilled with what he was seeing. Audrey's head whipped up to see Oscar ignore her still, a wave of soldiers suddenly infesting the space, running like cockroaches from the darkness of the church.

"_**What the fuck have you done?"**_ Audrey hissed, eyes ablaze at Oscar.

He looked devastated, behind the wall of moving soldiers. She saw him enter behind Oscar, the soldiers parting for him like the red sea.

Hellstrom.

His blue eyes watched her, a wicked smile hitting his face to see her once again pinned back by one of his men.

"Audrey?" Eli asked, looking at her with increasing fear, the soldier's arm gripping him viciously.

"They're upset with me," she said, snapping her eyes to him, immediately radiating cool and calm. "Keep looking at me, Eli. It's me, they're mad at me-"

"Audrey-" Oscar began.

Eli's head begun to turn.

"Non, non, Eli," she called gently. "Mon chéri, look at me. Keep your eyes on me."

She pulled herself forward, causing the young solider holding her fall forward. She heard Landa yell out a bark of laughter, but she ignored him, eyes focused solely on Eli as she struggled as close as she could to him, till she was but feet from his form.

She could see the terror in his gaze and she smiled comfortingly, pouring her heart and soul into the goodness she shared with him.

"Mon chéri," she said with a soft laugh. "Look, look they are speaking to me, it is me they are upset with."

She could see Hellstrom withdraw the gun behind Eli, raising it with expert hold. Her eyes stayed on Eli, panic consuming his young and sunken face

"Everything is très bien," she continued, face soft. "You're ok."

He blinked, focusing on her. She tugged herself forward once more, mere inches away, smiling softly.

"_This is my qārā,"_ she mouthed silently to him. A twitch of a smile crept upon his face.

The comfort reached the boy's face seconds before a bullet went through the back of it. The blood splattered out of his mouth and nose, spraying her dress, her hair, her face.

Audrey closed her eyes, feeling her body go weak for a moment, the soldier's hand holding her against gravity.

"A good liar," Landa called in English from behind her. A laugh ran from Hellstrom. She kept her eyes lowered, unable to look at the unrecognisable mass that was a child only seconds earlier.

"Audrey," Oscar called, his voice brittle and terrified.

She moved so quickly that the soldier's grip slipped as she ran towards Oscar, eyes wild, teeth bared.

A young, indistinguishable soldier from the wall of Nazi's caught her around her waist in a simple swing, but she ran at Oscar still, held back by the Nazi's arm. The rage she felt was so overpowering she didn't notice the shift of her fractured ribs and bruised skin pulled by the stranger's grip. Her entire universe was now narrowed down to only Oscar, her eyes black as she stared at him with hatred.

"You may as well have **shot him**!" She screamed. "You may as well have **pulled the trigger**!"

"I bargained for our lives Audrey," Oscar said, tears beginning to stream down his face.

A hysteric laugh broke Audrey as she shook her head in disbelief.

"You fucking _**idiot**_," she spat. "You fucking idiot! You have bargained for _**your**_ life, _**yours**_, you may as well wear one of these uniforms!"

"Audrey," Oscar begged, looking devastated by her response.

"They'll kill everyone! Everyone that hid him, everyone that helped- because you're too fucking _**stupid**_ to lie!"

Landa laughed aloud at her synopsis because ultimately, she was correct. He should have just said he'd never seen the papers. They would have been destroyed, nothing would have probably come of it. Killing a Red Cross doctor wasn't something he wanted done on his watch. Landa had bigger things than a little boy to hunt down. If Oscar had held his nerve the boy would still be alive under the floorboards instead of dead in a bloody puddle in front of them. He walked slowly to stand by the side of the scene, observing as though he were a patron at a gallery, instead of artist and architect of this destruction. It looked like a grotesque renaissance painting. Blood and passion and fury and betrayal. Framed by the beautiful painting that lined the walls and ceilings of the cathedral. It looked truly biblical.

"He knew," Oscar stuttered, throwing a hand to Landa.

"He doesn't care!" She yelled, the hysteric laughter interrupting her once more. "He is in charge of every swastika wearing soldier in the entire of Paris, and you think he would give a _shit_ about this! _**He doesn't care!**_**" **

"His name is the Jew Hunter-"

"**He doesn't care!"** She screamed out, furious at Oscar's ongoing obsession with Landa. If she had turned her head to the left by even a quarter of an inch she would have seen a smile that graced Landa's face that confirmed everything she had said. He didn't care about the dead little boy on the floor. He cared about being stimulated.

"It was your idea," he choked out.

She froze, slacked in the young soldier's grip, shocked at what he had said. He could see the flood of pain at such a betrayal.

"Oscar," she whispered, feeling winded at such a cruel twist of fate.

"She planned it," he said, sounding physically pained by what he was stating. His eyes dropped from her, her form held up only by the Nazi's grip. She looked like a devastated marionette, as though someone had let go of the strings. She waited for him to look but cowardice held his gaze firmly to the floor. Her head snapped to look at Hans Landa, her eyes suddenly black.

"He's lying," she said simply in German. Landa grin slowly stretched his face, eyes flashing in delight and Hellstrom threw her a look of interest.

"What are you saying?" Oscar asked, panicked by her switch to German.

"He came to my house to get the papers that night, I didn't even know that they were there," she said quickly, almost laughing at the insanity of the conversation. "Arthur left them. Oscar bullied me in to bringing them tonight and at the last minute told me I had to get Eli. He is _lying_."

"What did she say?" Oscar asked Landa, eyes wide in terror.

"She says you're lying," Landa said pleasantly in French, shrugging almost theatrically as though he was sharing some fun gossip between friends. "That this was on your hands. That you made her bring Eli-"

"Non," Oscar choked out, terror coating his movement. "Non, Audrey, I've bargained for your life, I am doing this to help-"

"Lying!" She interrupted in german, shaking her head in wide-eyed agitation at Hans Landa.

"You bargained for your life," Landa called out. "Not hers."

"She was part of the deal!" Oscar cried, eyes turning wide as Hellstrom began to stalk towards her.

Audrey felt the soldier behind her force her down to her knees, his hand wrapping hard into her hair to keep her upright. She didn't struggle, she kept her eyes forward on Oscar, her spine straight, her face calm. Hellstrom raised the gun once more, hot blood still splattered on the barrel.

"Landa we had a deal!"

"He is lying," Audrey repeated in German, her voice incredibly calm and resolute.

"Non," Landa replied to Oscar conversationally, ignoring Audrey completely. "We had a deal for _you_. She's a traitor, and as a Colonel in the Nazi Party I cannot settle for anything less than prescribed justice-"

"Landa, you swore, you gave me your word!" Oscar choked, eyes wide in horror.

Landa watched Audrey intently, her eyes focused entirely on Oscar with such disappointment and disgust that the young doctor winced.

The gun barrel buried into her tousled hair, digging painfully against her temple, but she didn't flinch, unmoved by imminent death. She felt the blood of Eli against the iron, smearing against her blonde hair and skin.

"Landa! Landa!" Oscar yelled, scrambling forward. A soldier grabbed him, dragging him backwards.

"Auf Wiedersehen Audrey," Hellstrom mocked. He kicked the hammer back, the gun clicking against her head.

"She's telling the truth!" Oscar roared, tears rolling down his face. "I lied. **She's telling the truth!**"

Hellstrom frowned mockingly. He pulled the trigger and Audrey ever so softly flinched at the click.

For a fraction of a second, she queried if death felt like nothing, just a brief continuation of life, but when her eyes opened she saw Oscar sobbing in front of her, sunk to his knees. She looked up at Landa who smiled at her with a playful grin.

"Nerves of steel," he muttered in French, shaking his head with an impressed quirked eyebrow.

She was stood up the young soldier, and Landa grinned once more to see not even a tremor run her.

Oscar was beside himself, sobbing into his own hands and she looked on with contempt.

Hellstrom's hands were on her, roughly grabbing her as he clicked handcuffs on Audrey's wrists and shoved her towards Landa who carefully caught her, avoiding her bruised ribs.

"Careful," he scolded with a dark chuckle. She looked up at him, his hands clasping her shoulders as he smiled down at her with almost paternal pride. Her eyebrows furrowed in agitation and he let out a fresh breath of laughter.

"You are under arrest Fräulein Audrey Loewe, for acting against the German nation, and the Nazi Party," he said calmly in German, the sudden veer of authority across him. "Please come with me."

She nodded, unable to look back at Oscar whose loud sobbing filled the room.

Landa's hand sunk her shoulder as he guided her from the church, and she let the hatred still her heart. Her grief, her pain, her rage melted to nothing against the white heat that her righteousness burned. She saw him glance her soft expression as he dipped her head into the car, giving her a small interested smile as she looked forward, her whole-body firm and controlled.

"Ah, mademoiselle," he said softly, leaning forward with his pristine handkerchief in hand. He carefully and delicately wiped below her eye, her lashes fluttering at his touch. "You have a little… boy on you."

He let himself smile brilliantly at his joke, holding the stained cloth in front of her. She watched the blotch of red smeared across the white fabric, looking at it as though it were thick glass. As though it didn't belong to her or Eli.

It didn't, not really. It was a symbol. It was the beginning of a reckoning. She knew by the end of it, she would have Eli's blood paid for by Landa's.

She would have her pound of flesh.


End file.
